The afternoon weather was a bit better and thanks to Pam we didn't get lost but we did have to retrace our steps a couple of times when we sailed past where some of the questions were.

Eventually we arrived at the finish, The Carts Bog Inn, where we had some socially distanced chat. Coffee and cake was next on the list but there was no cake so we had to bite the bullet and have coffee and desert instead. It's a hard life sometimes.

Eventually it was time to head for home and we took the route via Barnard Castle, some of it I'd never driven before.

All in we'd covered just over 200 miles door to door and the ZS perfomed impeccably and despite some slightly spirited driving on the back roads it returned 31 mpg. The more I drive this car, the more impressed I am with it.

After we got home we had an email with the quiz results and we had 24 out of 25 correct so happy with that.

 A big thanks to Ed Graham for all his hard work in plotting the route and finding some roads which could only be described as interesting, and for all the planning and coordination with other agencies to make this happen. It's a lot of work and we really appreciate it.

I have some of the decals I need for the wheel centres and with them came some for the front and rear badges. The front badge is fine but he rear was very faded. It looks great now.

Another job on the list is to repair the scuffed bolsters on the front seats. I have a leather repair kit and it seems fairly straightforward to do so watch this space. The black will be easy enough but getting a colour match on the blue may be tricky.

For those who don't recognise it, it's an MG ZS 180. 2.5 litre V6, 0-60 in around seven seconds and a licence losing top speed of 139mph.

It's the first time I've ever  bought a car without seeing it first and it's about what I expected for the price I paid.

It needs a fair bit of TLC but there's nothing seriously wrong with it and I'll work though most of the stuff bit by bit. It will have to go to my tame body man at some point once this virus problem settles down. 

Gone

Loaded up on its way to pastures new

To be honest, when I bought this car, I didn't expect to have it this long. It was bought as a cheap winter driver and was a bit rough. It lived outside all year round and for a few years was my daily driver. I thought I'd  probably have it for about five years.

Over the years it's had quite a bit of work done, just to keep it half decent and roadworthy and it just kept on going.

Recently it's had little use and it needs more work than I want to do on it so it is time for it to go.

There are many happy memories with this old bus. Many great trips to Scotland; blasting down the A1 to buy the alloy wheels, having them fitted and blasting back again; a tour in the Midlands with the MGB Register; and many more. Our touring holidays were usually 1000+ miles and mostly trouble free.

I'm sad to see it go.

The man behind the lens after a quick blast round the car park.

The whole album can be seen here

We made the lunch halt without trouble and enjoyed the break and food before setting off again for the afternoon section.

This didn't go so well as a couple of wrong turns had us pushing hard to keep in time. One wrong turn took us miles out of our way and we had to backtrack, but we couldn't remember exactly which way we had come. We turned into one country lane and found a checkpoint. It was the one we wanted but we had no idea how we got there.

With these problems our mileages were all over the place and Pam was kept quite busy calculating mileages and times as well as keeping me on the right road. Thankfully she's good at it and did well.

We finally made it to the end in time and took part in the optional challenge which involved me wearing a blindfold and Pam directing me. This involved a bit of shouting as can be heard on the video.

After this it was back to the start venue where a hot meal awaited and very good it was too.

Paddy was signing autographs so we got our route book signed.

This isn't a competitive event but all those who had a clean sheet were entered into a draw for two bottles of bubbly. The 2300 Club have a system where if the crew selected isn't there another is drawn until there is a crew there to receive the award. We won on the third draw. Paddy presented us with the bottles.

As neither of us drink much we asked Paddy to sign the bottles and we gave them to Durham Auto Club for the next time they are raising funds for The Great North Air Ambulance. Paddy, a true gent, signed the bottles.

Awards over it was time for the talk and Paddy entertained us with his humourous tales of his life.

Now for the rant.

Only one thing that we didn't like about the day was the queues of cars at the checkpoints. That's fine if they are all on time, but many times they were early and just parked up waiting for their time. This created problems for anybody who was pushed for time as nobody knew who was early and could end up waiting and losing time before realising the situation. Also on narrow roads getting past  was sometimes a problem.

To my mind the whole aim of the event is to regulate your speed on the route to arrive at a checkpoint on time, not to just drive and block up the road because you are early. That is just lazy.

It made me think of the twelve car rallies we used to do in the 70s. If you got your times wrong and approached a checkpoint early, your only option was to slow to a crawl and hope to lose enough time. If you stopped within sight of the checkpoint the marshals would give you the time you stopped, not the time you reached the checkpoint so there was no advantage to stopping short early.

Rant over.

Despite this we had a great day and huge thanks go to all who worked so hard planning the event and those stalwarts manning the checkpoints on the day.

We said our thank yous and  goodbyes and headed off to our hotel and a comfy bed after a long but very enjoyable day.

By the time we got home we'd done 357 enjoyable miles.