... so did The Special Builder's Breakfast Club and sped off to Southwold's Harbour Café.

The day before, I'd popped over to Awkward and Leon's workshop to see what was going on and also give the newly assembled Hillman pinion carrier a bit more of a workout.

Awkward was crack-testing his Model A crankshaft that was reported to have a problem developing in journal No.4. Neither of us could see it so, we set off in the Hillman to have it Magnafluxed over at Very Learned Counsel's works. This revealed the crack to be on the radius of journal No.3 - no wonder we were having doubts about the diagnosis.

Leon's Coventry Climax engine was also on the bench as a strip down to find the source of a leak in the block had revealed the poor condition of the shells.

It's such a beautifully engineered piece of equipment and incredibly light; a V8 would be something! A new set of shells has been found so it should be back in his A7 before very long.

And boys being boys, a Scalextric was set up in the living room (it's actually Fleischmann track) and cleverly, for when you're on your own, one of the cars was equipped with a small pin on the underside of the rear of its chassis and set to whizz round the circuit at quite a lick. The extra pin prevented the back-end from swinging out and the car coming off the track. The idea was to try to overtake the solo car and stay ahead for at least one lap - very difficult.

Back in my own workshop, I'd spent a couple of days welding up the wheeling machine frame. It became so heavy I could only just turn it over to complete the welding on the other side.

The legs and anvil adjustment malarkey have yet to be added because I'm waiting to get the wheel and anvils - there's some tricky alignment bits to get right before I go any further. I ordered a kit of parts from Justin Baker and was about to get in the car to go and collect them when....

... another early start saw me and a fellow Magneteer whizzing off to Heathrow to catch a plane to Oslo (the little white dot is the moon going down in the west, the streaks of light are a passing lorry.)

We crossed the English coast abeam Felixstowe Ferry - a popular breakfast and lunch run - you can enjoy breakfast on either side of the River Deben and, for lunch, fish and chips at the Ferry Café are the best ever. After a stop-over in Oslo...

... we started our descent into Bodø as the moon reappeared in the East. The temperature had dropped considerably since I was here a couple of weeks ago and, when the sun was obscured by mist and low cloud, now everything looked a bit grey.

But there was a bonus. As the sky cleared in the early afternoon, freshly fallen snow on the peaks sparkled for a moment before the sun started down again.