... that geographically speaking, there's something about the legend of Robin Hood that I hadn't quite grasped. As I understood it, young 'Loxy' was fond of dashing into Nottingham, dishing out a few manly cuffs to the skulls of the Sheriff's bone-heads and slipping back to the forest like it was no more than a skip to the corner shop to get the Sunday's, fags and pop.

With this in mind, Learned Counsel and I set off to Nottingham imagining that the sign to Sherwood Forest on the A1 would be a good aiming point but when we got there, Nottingham was nowhere to be seen. Plugging in one of the two Sat Navs we had with us, we discovered that we'd overshot by 40 something miles. I reckon that on a horse, young Loxy getting back for the obligatory feasting and merriment in the same day would be a bit of an ask.

Earlier in the week I dropped off to the laser-cutting people, the templates and drawings for the spare wheel carrier fabrication. I'd done the drawings in a rush the night before and woke up at 3.00am the following morning realising that the bracket which attaches to the cross-member wasn't going to work. With the bracket folded, like one of Dali's clocks, the pairs of nuts nearest the fold were going to be getting in each other's way. I called in again on my way to Norfolk and added a 25mm band above the bend line to alleviate the potential clash.

And whilst the rear framework was dismantled, I got on with the rest of the body. I spent what seemed like most of a day cutting 3 pieces of wood and then decided I didn't like what I'd done. It's my own fault for not first doing a few sketches to see how it was all going to work.

I'm binning the 'X' idea because the angles of the cuts are all over the place and only one brace is needed to carry the load from the top. I'm retaining the '' beam and I'll fill the slot I cut in it with a splice. To give the striker post some extra rigidity, I'll incorporate an 'L' bracket at its base. The hinge post is robust enough as it'll be quite heavily braced by the windscreen pillar beam and the skin over the scuttle.

I still have the fancy metal brackets I had made up - unfortunately I miscalculated and the ones destined for in front of the firewall are too big and interfere with the bonnet line. To alter them would compromise their integrity so I might leave them out or see if I can discreetly tweak the bottom of the bonnet panels when I get to them. But I could perhaps save myself a lot of messing about by using the other 2 big ones to brace the rear bulkhead.

Anyway, I've made myself sit down and do a few sketches so I think I've got a clearer idea of what to do. No doubt the first thing to go out of the window will be the plan....

And, returning briefly to where I came in.... In a flash of inspired insight it occurred to me that 'merry men' could be a contraction of 'merriment'. Maybe there weren't any 'Merry Men' at all. Maybe young Loxy was in his cups one night and dropping his 't's whilst in earshot of a passing chronicler.

This is how these tales get legs you know......  ipso facto, 'legends' methinks.