Rain, Spain and pain

What a weekend............rain, a little more rain and even more rain.  Yes, this was the British Grand Prix weekend with wet weather, copious amounts of mud, some very wet looking campers and plenty of on-track slipping and sliding.  Two hours to get out of the parking field on day one, which wasn’t too bad considering we were only about five rows in.  Other people were not so fortunate and revved their engines so much they were soon embedded in the muddy ruts.  Thankfully we were able to park for the remainder of the weekend at a friend’s house in the village then take a short stroll to the circuit, making quicker time than the queue of cars and buses lining the service roads.

I stuck to the plan and did not spend any money on merchandise (a modern day miracle in the making).  One of the major teams had a waterproof jacket for sale – actually it was little more than a cagoule from the supermarket value range – at the bargain price of, wait for it, £149.  Thanks but no thanks. By race day the weather had amazingly turned the corner and the sun shone for the race.  This was in total contrast to qualifying day when the monsoon conditions caused the session to be delayed for well over an hour.  To pass the time, several rounds of the Mexican Wave moved along the grandstands and even the pit crews joined in opposite our stand.  This all made for an entertaining afternoon and the onsite presenters were so stuck for what to talk about that they kept referring to a mouse that had been trapped and killed in the Ferrari garage!  The track was so wet that Noah, a large wooden boat and a selection of paired animals floated past en route to some mountain or other.  Good result on the day though, with a clever move by Mark Webber to get past Fernando Alonso.  The crowd erupted into whooping and cheering..................all apart from the two Hispanic ladies next to me who took on very glum expressions.

Bizarrely my location was not all it seemed to be.  Now then, I know I was sitting in the International Pit Straight stand at Silverstone in Northamptonshire.  However, my iPhone has a fancy feature whereby I can log into Facebook and ‘check in’ to where I am and this is posted on my Facebook page.  I thought I might as well give this a go however all the options on the first day were for Valencia in Spain (spookily the previous race was held there).  This theme carried on all weekend, even when Silverstone was given as an option and I used it, the accompanying map showed Silverstone as being in Valencia!  The weather updates on my iPhone were for Valencia (oh if only it was 29 degrees and no rain here) and the time setting reset itself to Spanish time!  All changed each time I left the circuit but the following day reverted back to Spain.  I am presuming that the Spanish HRT Formula 1 team (whose garage was near to our grandstand) had not changed their data from the previous fortnight and it was morphing into the iPhone workings.  This is taking “Mañana, mañana” to a new level.

With all the rain my garden is starting to resemble a jungle and there is much in the way of pruning to be carried out.  Trying to find a dry hour or two is proving to be something of a problem so it looks like it will be autumn before any proper chopping can be carried out.  This of course coincides with my annual fortnight away when the garden is at the mercy of my Dad so I daresay the whole place will look like a starter garden once he has finished clipping a bit here and a bit more here “to even it up”.  I managed to remove a few straggly weeds today to justify putting the garden waste wheelie bin out for collection.  Note to self..............when gardening do not, I repeat not, pull out weeds with bare hands before looking to see what they really are.  Stinging nettles hurt for hours and hours afterwards.

A large fox trotted across my driveway earlier on.  Looks like Noah needs a stronger lock on the loading bay door.