The Duke of Wellington is credited with the invention of a waterproof,
knee-length boot, henceforth known as the Wellington Boot (galoshes).
It is said that this came about during his many and long campaigns in
the rains of northern France.
This year our annual holiday consisted of an 800+ mile drive through
England and France to the Lot valley near Bordeaux, and boy, did I wish
I had a pair of those boots. The journey down through England started
off wet and got wetter, culminating in one cloud-burst after another
approaching Dover. Rain was coming in most of the way along the hood to
windscreen seal, and in both lower corners of the windscreen, the
quarter lights, and round the back of the door glass despite the
positive pressure in the cabin. The Navigator was reduced to mopping up
as much as she could with her best tea-towel, but she could not reach my
side of the windscreen so I stoically drove on with my right leg getting
wetter and wetter.
A dry spell in northern France, then another, even heavier, cloudburst
approaching the Loire. I was moved to comment how uncomplaining and
long-suffering she was when faced with such discomfort, when her friends
had tales of being whisked off in a jet to some hot beach, to be plied
with Barcardi and Coke by a handsome waiter. She was moved to reply
that seeing as how I had written an account of a trip round Britain the
previous year for the MGOC magazine, this year she was going to write
one about an MG 'holiday' from the other half's perspective.
To cap it all, when we arrived at our destination on the second day
after a dry journey, it started to rain and continued to do so for the
next 25 hours, making the carpets even wetter. Despite all that our
trusty 'Bee' never missed a beat during that ar any other part of the
trip, some 2300 miles in all. I did get the jump leads out once, to
lend to a Swiss to jump-start an Irishman (apparently they took one look
round the car park, spotted the B and said "He'll have jump leads!"),
and a screwdriver to put the bed back together but I'll not say anymore
about that. The sun did shine in the second week, we had plenty of
top-down motoring, and the car did dry out eventually. The journey back
home was hot, so all the mud from the first week became liberally
covered in a layer of dead flies.
I'm waiting till I get all the sunny photographs back from the
processors, then start working on the Navigator about next years
'holiday'.
PaulH.
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