... is the Port of Felixstowe as seen a couple of nights ago from the cockpit of young Harry's 737.

Just after the war, my mother and grandmother ran a guest house in Felixstowe. The popular gasper hadn't yet got the bad press it has today and having made a pact that they would both give up smoking, each caught the other sifting through the grates in the guest bedrooms looking for dogends with which to roll up new cigarettes. An uncle's father lived in a suite of rooms at the Felix Hotel, so the town has some family connections.

The Great Collector's Talbot hood is finished and looks well. Counsel drove it back to its home and reported no flapping or drumming of the double duck. I was a bit concerned because after cutting out the fabric to accommodate the rear window - with the frame in place - the back went slightly slack. If I were to do another hood, the sequence of attachment would be different.

The hood folds down very nicely and the window frame doesn't interfere with the natural lay of the fabric. I lifted the rear window a couple of inches from its original position to properly align with the rear-view mirror.

Only a tiny bit of progress on the Teardrop Special this week as I've had too many other distractions - making a living for instance. But I had a look in the stores because I knew I had a couple of ignition barrels, one having a key. I found it. I'll look up the Lucas part number and see if there's a wiring diagram for it somewhere. It's relatively modern - 60's perhaps, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find.

I've made up a jig to shape the air intake which goes from the heater matrix to the top of the scuttle. I mustn't forget to put drain holes in the bottom of the matrix box just in case the vent is left open in a shower.

With the Talbot out of the workshop, my bench was due a tidy up. Over the years, bits of scrap metal had accumulated underneath and as I still had a bit of 6mm ply over from the dashboard, I made up a shelf which covers the Hillman's spare axle. There's nothing quite like a good clear out - although I confess, thinking I might have been a bit hasty, I had to retrieve one piece of machined flat bar from the skip.

A chum dropped by and was wondering how I might achieve the curving lines of the rear of the body with the ends of the chassis rails as they are. Good point. The obvious course of action would be to cut the rails off aft of the spring hangers and introduce a new curved section - remembering that the rear of the fuel tank is attached to the cross rail, as are the jacking points - and the problem would be solved. That sort of thing is of course verboten, but perhaps if everyone looks over there for a moment...