There is no update, but I'm writing one anyway, because it's a blog, and I feel strangely compelled to add to it on a regular basis, even if I have nothing to write about apart from the most pointlessly mundane of trivial observations.

I have not yet begun to source parts for the R5, because snakebite (he who sold me the car) says he has some of the required bits in storage, so it'd make sense to take a look at those and see if they'll do the job before lashing out cash to buy them elsewhere, so that's a task for the weekend.

I did do a bit of poking around here - http://www.eurocarparts.com/ - and it appears that all the stuff I need is at least available, and not ruinously expensive either.

I'd say the car probably needs about £500 spending on it to get all the 'nuts & bolts' stuff right up to scratch (including labour), and then after that, it's just the aesthetic restoration aspect that remains, which I suspect might be rather more costly, but the car is already twenty years old, so another few months of waiting won't kill it. (He said, hopefully.)

I have used the car for the commute a couple of days this week, and since I was working late one night, the drive back over the mountain (nice and dry and no fog) to Ramsey was certainly a bit of an eye-opener. I daren't go much beyond 'a certain speed,' * as one tends to become acutely aware that even the slightest mistake will almost inevitably result in an untimely and somewhat messy death, but even at that stage it all gets rather hairy, too much so for a fat old man like me, that's for sure.

Anyway, it's Friday night, which means getting stupidly pissed and playing BF2142 online with a few chums. (Complete with headsets and Teamspeak, because nothing less than the ultimate nerd-em-up will suffice.)

So that's all for now, which is probably a good thing, because this is a really shitty blog entry.

* It doesn't do to overly incriminate oneself......