I knew that it would take me a little longer to get to the Midlands than normal but…

Bob started perfectly and I was soon on my way through Essex and into Suffolk through Haverhill. The torrential rain was fine but the crosswinds were causing me all sorts of worry. Not since the Suzuki Ignis hire car we had in Hungary have |I had such a bad case of ‘rollaphobia’ where each bend or gust of wind sends shivers through me. Seeing a gap in the edge up ahead was causing anxiety as much of the road towards Duxford is high and exposed and so the winds were strong. I got onto the M11 and then A14 and decided that I’d have to stop at Cambridge Services for a break and a drink of water. On returning to Bob I considered the tyre pressures and thought it would be a good idea to check them. After helping a man find the washer bottle on his Renault Clio I set to putting the tyre pressures to 30 at the front and 46 at the back, as suggested by the sticker on the steering column. The back tyres were 22 and 29, the fronts 35 and 31. No wonder she was like driving a water bed! Tyre pressures as they should be I returned to the A14 and found, not surprisingly, that things were much better. But it was then that the roof clips came undone…

I’d mentioned to H earlier in the week that I thought the roof clips were maybe not up to the job, but thought they’d be OK… The back one kept rattling undone so when I’d stopped to do the tyres I’d had to re-clip it. Back on the A14 the wind picked up and I heard the back clip go. I decided that at the next services/garage I’d pull over and re-clip it. Then the front one came undone too. I was (thankfully) just approaching a slip road when a heard a ‘whoosh’ from behind me and looked around to see the roof had popped up. The wind had obviously caught it and thankfully I wasn’t going too fast.

It could have ripped the roof off or pulled me into the outside lane.  I pulled over onto the slip road and pulled the roof down. I had to stop this happening so I pulled the laces out of one of my astro-turf trainers and tied the roof down as tight as I could. The outside clips were clipped back down but I couldn’t find anything to hold them in place.

With the roof tied there was little chance of the roof popping back up but nevertheless it was a very tentative drive to the next garage where I stopped to look for something I could use as a fastening pin. It was an Esso garage in the middle of nowhere, and I wonder what the lady behind the counter thought of the man with no hair who came in and bought only a card of hair grips… Still, they did the job and stopped the clips coming off again – there may need to be a more permanent solution though!

The rest of the journey was uneventful and I arrived in good time to play nine holes of golf with my brother on his birthday. An eventful journey but a successful one overall. Well done Bob!