... is almost gone and whilst the cold and bright days are a very welcome change from the dank, wet and overcast of recent winters, the downside is the salt on the roads. I was on the M25 a few days ago, a bright but chilly day and there was a salt mist almost a metre high thrown up by the traffic - I didn't take the Hillman out on New Year's Day and I haven't been out in it since for that very reason.

My car of the month at the local New Year's Day meet had to be this Bentley and I was surprised to see it out in the conditions which prevailed on the day; I take my hat off to the owners.

I also take my hat off to Mr Dean, owner of 'Little Satan' who ventured out along with Leon in his Austin 7 Special for the first breakfast run of the year - to Thorpeness. The Ambassador's Daughter and I wimped out and took the Mercedes but frankly, the fuss and palaver of washing down the Hillman in the freezing cold ...... no thanks.

Instead, a bit of house-keeping, charging the battery, replenishing the anti-freeze and whatnot - I even got the polish out and fussed on with that for a few minutes. I've got some special American polish that a friend of mine uses on his 'Flaming Cactus' Airstream vans. I apply it with my (gloved) fingers rather than a cloth and work it in to the aluminium before buffing with a soft cloth; the results are fantastic but it's a bit of a labour of love and you need to set aside a full day to cover the whole car properly.

I was asked to extend Project 'X' to include a loom roll carriage which would go up and down, in and out and side to side. Here's the in and out and side to side bit; the up and down is taken care of by a jacking beam mounted on the black sliders - a bit of an over-kill but the more substantial the machine, the longer it'll last in a commercial environment. In fact, this bit of the machine was more difficult to develop than the rest of it put together. I'll post a more complete picture when it's finished.

A quick jury-rig of the Rover's gear lever and handbrake quadrant showed that I'd managed to get the ruler the right way up and read the numbers properly. Once again, the benefits of laser-cutting shine through - cutting the brake ratchet would have been testing!

And here's one of the farm cats - cool I would guess, as it's January.