But the disaster. I've got to run a 6" duct across the garage from the kitchen to the outside wall for an extracting cooker hood, which involves drilling a hole through the cavity wall into the kitchen and another through the (single-brick) garage wall to the outside. I could go down to 4" with a reducer, but going to all this trouble and expense I might as well go the whole hog. Hired a drill and core bit for two days as I had no idea how long it would take. Boy is it heavy, and working right up against the garage ceiling I have to push at head height, which is really hard work. I drill the cavity wall from the garage to keep the mess in the kitchen to a minimum, so push the V8 outside, and roll the roadster forwards and cover it, so it is well out of the way. Makes a horrendous mess with brick dust everywhere, so I decide to drill the garage wall from the outside ... and of course it pees down. Waterproofs and hat on I persevere, and by mid-afternoon both are done but I'm knackered. The V8 is soaked but it has stopped raining now and decided to leave it outside to dry off a bit. Stick the drill stuff in the back of the ZS to take it back to the hire shop to reduce the hire to one day ... and manage to back into the side of the V8! A combination of being knackered, never having driven the ZS when either of the other two cars are out before, and not being able to see the front of the V8 in the rear-view mirror (OK it was visible in the passenger mirror, but I'm used to seeing a neighbours car in that but further away), all conspire against me. So a moderate repair to the V8 wing which is relatively easy to knock the worst out of, but a major repair to the ZS bumper.

Rain expected overnight but it didn't look too bad, so didn't put the cockpit cover on over the raised hood, and boy was that a mistake. It absolutely threw it down from shortly after midnight, and was still mizzling when we set off for the start. Water lying on both rubber mats, sill carpets wet and fogging up inside as soon as we got in, although the heater fan soon cleared that. Still mizzling for the start at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, but not long after that it stopped, and by 12:30 the sun was shining so the top came down. A very varied and interesting route with loads of beaches and castles to stop at as one wanted, cloud building up towards the end. Clutch holding up and I was still using it as little as possible. Got to the finish at about 4pm for Barra Brith and Welsh Cake. Although nearly 80 cars were listed we hardly saw any while on the move - we hate convoys. Then back to our accommodation, started mizzling then full rain, but we carried on with the hood still down and it had virtually stopped by the time we arrived.

We stayed at The Cors which is quite a quirky place. Garden reminiscent of a prehistoric jungle (but very well cared for) and a large Victorian House that from the outside looks a little spooky. But the room was good and the bathroom modern, and the food and wine fabulous.

The second night I put the hood cover on, and just as well as by 11pm it was raining and that carried on all night and until about mid-day when we left the M4 for The Midlands. Then the roads slowly dried up, and we were in sunshine by the time we reached the M5, arriving home about 1pm or so. Ideal to leave the car out to dry off, but it still needed more next day to finish off the hood and the sill carpets as some rain always comes in at the bottom of the quarter-light to screen upright seals, and for some reason between the hood and the drop-glass by the Navigators left shoulder. 520 miles most of it nursing the clutch, and apart from some of the weather a good weekend. Only one slight criticism of the run itself - the Tulip instructions were on A5 paper looking like they had been shrunk down from A4 which meant the diagrams and text were pretty small. Given the typical age of the runners and riders, not ideal, and not something we have encountered before. Some fun and frolics attending to the clutch after our return.

Weather better than expected with quite a bit of sun and milder than of late, so hood down for the run but up for the motorway journeys at each end, 190 miles with no problems except the clutch release bearing is still intermittently noisy.

Saturday dawns - and it's raining. So get kitted out in full wet weather gear, and head up the A5 for one of the laybys under Tryfan. Five of us in a pal's BMW, which bongs at one point, and he says 'three degrees' ... then it starts sleeting. At the layby it's blowing a gale with horizontal snow and very cold. But nothing daunted off we troop, with a group of Commandos one of whom says to me "We have to do this, but you must be mad". We are at the milepost buttress heading for the Heather Terrace, so almost from the start it gets pretty steep with some scrambling. Snow is beginning to lay, so great care needed on sloping slabs. Then we see people coming down and they say that at the moment we are in the lee of the mountain, but at the top of the buttress you are fully exposed to the gale and snow and they decided discretion was the better part of valour. One of our number was not feeling well so decided to turn back, we pressed on a bit further but decided there was little point so turned back as well. Back to the B&B and dry out, then nothing for it but to stroll down to Bettws and explore. Didn't take long, so inevitably ended up in several pubs for the afternoon.

We were staying at Oakfield House just outside Bettws, the group reckoned it was the best place we had stayed at, I can recommend it highly. Sunday raining even more so we just headed for home. I'd forgotten Vee's sunroof leaks, my seat was wet, so I put my waterproof jacket over it. My passenger said there was a drip of water on the sun visor, so I wiped it off and tipped it down to wipe the top of it, and got a cascade of cold water right into my lap for my trouble! My pal roared his head off, the last time it happened was at Ben Nevis but that time as I went round a roundabout it all cascaded over him, so honours even. 290 uneventful miles, weather drying up as we got closer to home so Vee was dry externally on arrival, and just needed some time in the sun to dry out internally next day.

A glorious route through the many pretty villages and much scenery of Warwickshire and Gloucestershire, sadly marred by an unexpected road closure about half-way for Sunday morning top-dressing. We tried to fiddle our way round but just couldn't line up where we were with the instructions, so after a while just made our own way cross-country to Winchcombe. Lots of interesting stuff in the castle, gardens not at their best this early but still lots of spring colour. Barn and Snowy owls in the grounds for the Navigator.

Journey home straightforward until just outside Evesham and a bad accident at a junction we needed to get through. Police blocked everything up as usual and showed no signs of keeping the traffic flowing, so we had to turn round and retrace out steps, ironically on probably the longest lane we had been on all day without any turnings, and a 15 mile detour.