.. not many cares in the world and not a cloud in the sky, so where did the rain come from?

Before starting out, I'd topped up the radiator with some antifreeze, then roared off out of the garage without replacing the radiator cap. I'd only gone half a mile before turning around and coming back - I wasn't dressed for 8° - so after putting the car away, I set off down the lane on foot, scanning the verges. Happily, within a few hundred yards, I came across the undamaged cap.

It had been a slow week on the Riley because I was waiting on spares for the rear axle. Clever-clogs thought he could pop down to the local shop and get some oil seals that would fit - and they did - but were about 1mm too thick which meant that the bearing locked up when pressed home. Giving up on that job, I drew up The Other Wright Brother's saw blade guide which, being made out of old socks, had cracked in all but one of the threaded portions. A good exercise for me in understanding the mill.

But before that job, some 20 years ago, a friend had asked me to finish for him a board for a game popular on the African Continent. The difficulty was carving the cup shapes out of solid mahogany and it wasn't until I got the Bridgeport - 20 years later - that I could see a way of doing it that wouldn't take, well, 20 years. The first thing was to make up a tool from a piece of tool steel and an old bolt. That seemed to work although it took a bit of time to get the cutting edge right - my first attempt saw me file the blades the wrong way round (I made a propellor for a Rotherham fuel pressure pump once, it would have worked on a pusher, but not the Pup it was meant for).

All's well that ends well. There were no mess-ups and despite having to turn the board around a couple of times so the quill could reach the edges of the board, the result was symmetrical.

Next, I pulled out a few of the ancillary items that needed to be sandblasted and painted; the pedals, wing stays and various brackets that I'd removed in the initial strip down and were going back on in mostly different places.

A coat of Kurust is always a good starting point. I didn't risk separating the pedal shoes from the stalks just in case the alloy fell to pieces.

The carbs I've selected for the project came from the scrap 6/80. They seem to be largely unmolested.

Their disadvantage in my book being that one carb body incorporates an electric choke which I'll do away with. I remember an electric choke we had on a Vauxhall Velox - nothing but trouble.

A lick of paint on the front bumper and radiator support will round off the week's exertions....

... and until the new spares arrive, I'll go back to staring at the moon.