I've been doing a bit of painting - the new clutch and brake bits and the old bits that needed touching up before the final assembly and, as is my custom, I moved the bathroom towel rail into the sitting room and lit the wood burner to help with the drying process. Included in the newly painted bits are parts of an old Autovac which I've rescued and intend to employ as the brake fluid reservoir for the front brakes. There are a few dents in the casing which I was hoping to knock out but, as usual, forgot about them and went ahead with the painting. I happened to glance up from my reading the other evening and the dents caught my eye. Yes! Of course!... they're air gun pellet dents; some beastly little tic must have been blasting away at the Autovac with an air rifle!

And talking of painting, I've started to build up the repair layers on the original Hillman badge. I'm shooting in the dark here but as I've got oil paints to hand, that's what I'm using. I can mix up the exact colour and then finish off with clear nail polish when the paint is high enough. It looks good so far...

A bit of good news ..... the other day I tripped over a Bugatti type 40 with a hood that folds away under a hinged panel and was able to take a few pics and make a couple of sketches. Almost at the same time,  I remembered that an acquaintance just a few miles away has a Vauxhall 30/98 with a 'hidden' hood arrangement and I button-holed him in the car park at Morrisons last week and asked if I could visit and take a few notes. 'Delighted; any time', he said, but added that it was a nightmare system and by the time it was up the sun was usually showing its face again.

I did the plug lead ends the other night - it was so blinkin' cold that that was all I could manage. I've just got enough lead left to connect to the coil where I think the firewall is going to be. This weekend I was planning to get the pedal box put to bed when I remembered that I was on wedding car duty. Fortunately, I managed to borrow a pretty fancy Bentley and swanked about in that for the day. It didn't matter that my landlord saw it outside my 'umble cottage because it was his daughter who was getting married..

And whilst talking of celebrations, this 100th post puts me in both reflective and celebratory mood. Here is where it all began 15 months ago..

... and this was what was left of the cockpit.

I'm not sure what it is that drives us to take on these projects, especially when they look like a disaster from the outset. Perhaps it's the vision of what things could be or a just basic urge, common to chaps-in-sheds, to take things apart and put them back together again. Whatever it is, when we get so far that there's no going back, it must be cause for some celebration.

It was that 'orrible little tic what painted the instruments I'll bet.