Just got the car back from Marcos who have now fitted Racelogic‘s most excellent Traction Control system. Basically the weather has been bloody foul for so long (even for Manchester) that I’ve decided to bite the bullet & make the car a bit safer. Crap driving? Quite possibly. Standing water? Black ice? All over the shop, & with 350 BHP chugging away, am I a man or a mouse?… SQUEEK! The traction has taken a bit of getting used to as it works in a totally different way to my only other experience of driving with traction control (Vauxhall, FWD + ABS) , and I have not experimented with the variable slide on it at all (Set to ‘Wet’. Leave on ‘Wet’! Perhaps the other settings are for people who live in the south?). Despite the weather I am still getting out in the car a fair bit, having taken a couple of weeks off work, and it’s great!!!!!!!!!!

I have now discovered that my fab Pirelli’s are definitely not designed for use in the snow! On Wednesday we had a rare but welcome heavy fall, and I was gagging to get out in the car as I had a trip to Chester planned. Driving though the countryside covered in snow (Um… the countryside that is, not me…) in an open topped car is just such a fantastic experience, one I got totally hooked on at Uni, pootling around outside Sheffield in my Triumph Spitfire 1500. However, that day it was not to be as I got about 50 feet from the garage before I got stuck going forward, then (having finally excepted that I wasn’t going anywhere) about 15 feet backwards before I stuck there too, so I finally ended up digging my way back to the garage with a shovel the size of…er… something quite small, and with the help of Caroline M, whose babies I was well up for having as I couldn’t have done it without her (someone had to drive while I dug/swore/steamed). But she didn’t want ugly babies, so… Took an hour though, & my Old Dear killed me when I was late getting over to Chester…