My daily walk, at first onerous, has now become an indispensable pleasure. The benefits have already manifested themselves in palpable ways - better circulation (legs that work) and diminishing brain-fog - the cutlery properly ordered, and not finding the kettle in the fridge being two observable advantages.

The wonders of nature at first hand have I think promoted a more philosophical reaction to my avoidable blunders in the workshop, which in turn has benefitted my neighbours' delicate ears.

I recommend a stretching of the legs to anyone whose occupations - or lack of - has encouraged a sedentary habit.

New Year's Day was celebrated by a trip to The Queen's Head at Hawkedon. It was a good turn-out. I 'failed to proceed' about two hundred yards from the pub with suspected ignition problems. Happily, Leon in his A7 Special was following and together we pulled all the plugs, richened the mixture, and checked for continuity in the system. Normal service resumed long enough for me to arrive as though nothing was wrong.

Some months ago, I'd ditched the electronic ignition and reverted to points and since then, all had been well. I suspected a worn spindle bush was upsetting the Hall sensor's critical gap. Perhaps this was still true for the points, even though they're less particular. I drew from stores an old distributor and renewed its bush. I need only replace the bearing which sits under the bob-weight's platform to complete the job. Leon has since speculated that the rotor arm - something that I hadn't considered, might be the culprit. As with condensers, new pattern parts can be of indifferent quality, so I'll try and find some new old stock.

I wrestled with the final hydraulic pipe this week - the clutch pipe - which proved to be only slightly less awkward than the Buzz Wire game on the front brake joining pipe. I'm not too happy with the placement of the steering column's electric motor - the double universal joint to the shaft is not ideally positioned - so I shall address that whilst...

... the scuttle is in the shop for some adjustments. I realised that the dash rail was not as high as it should be and, rather than take everything apart, I thought that pulling it into position and with a bit of heat, relaxing the tubes into their new set, might do the trick.

A mill, besides doing what it should do, is also a handy irresistible force for this sort of exercise. Worked a treat too. The correction has altered the bonnet line, but I think I can get around that with some judiciously placed packing.

The cardboard templates were rechecked to make sure nothing had changed in respect of the scuttle anchor points. I shall replace the vertical panel with a diagonal tube as a way of introducing some triangulation.

This figure, moving slowly across my furniture, appeared the other afternoon. This would be The Mysteron's third visit (July 2018, Dec 2019). Traditionally, an 'O' has been their signature calling card - perhaps they're a bit more switched on these days.