From the hotel in Rognan, I borrowed a teaspoon and took it to the factory with me so I had something to both stir my tea and eat a yoghurt. I also borrowed a European plug which accepted a USB. I returned the plug but, at the time of departure, the spoon was nowhere to be found. It turned up in an inside pocket of my fluorescent jacket and wasn't discovered until I got home. I put it in the cutlery draw, noticing that it was quite different in design and size from the rest of my teaspoons. Yesterday, I opened the drawer and found another spoon identical to the Rognan example. It wasn't there before.

With the weather brightening up, a breakfast run was hastily arranged and off we went to Southwold for smoked salmon and scrambled eggs at the harbour cafe. A few days before, I 'd arranged to go and see my friends at GTB Restorations. More used to 12 carbs instead of 1, it didn't take them long to set the mixture and get the engine running as it should - or so I thought. About half way home and under power I could get only as far as the float chamber would take me before we rolled to a halt and had to wait for it to fill up again. This was a bit frustrating and eventually I stopped in my local village high street and changed the fuel filter. We didn't look back after that and ....

... the trip to Southwold was happily uneventful; everything working as it should. Not so for Leon in the Climax engined A7. Oil in the water as opposed to water in the oil, was a problem that had reared its head since the new installation. The top of the radiator looked like it was full of estuary mud so, a quick change of water in the system and an hour or two later, Leon had got back to the shop and ....

..... the engine was out. Pressurising the block didn't show up any water leaks which confirmed that the oil was getting into the water and not the other way round. Pressurising the oil system allowed the fault to be traced to a crack in the main gallery which runs along the side of the crankcase. A sleeve to re-line the gallery was turned up and carefully inserted with some bearing lock to hold it in place. Initial results were encouraging but I've since learnt that congrats and trebles all round might have been a bit previous. The A7 engine is going back in to allow time for pause and consideration.

This proved to be quite an interesting job. Some of the brake levers on a 1923 Hurtu tourer needed replacing and I was tasked to replicate the cast originals. After drawing up what was left of the good bits, laser cutting provided the basics ready for me to fabricate and then shape up with the files.

It was clear that the running problems on the Hillman were caused largely by a blocked fuel filter so I popped the old one in the lathe and turned the end off to extract the mesh.

Clean as a whistle. That's also odd.