There is nothing left to do today that a nervous man cannot invent.
That is not quite true. There is plenty. It is just that none of it is the interesting sort, and all of it is the sort that ruins a week if you skip it.
The route
The event’s route is Club Triumph’s to give, not ours, so all we will say here is where we sleep. Sedan on Monday morning, then Biberach an der Riß, Lienz, Merano, Andermatt, Épinal, and Rolduc on Saturday. Ten countries in six days.
The part that is ours is the bit at each end. We leave home tomorrow evening for the overnight crossing, run across France on Sunday, and sign on at Sedan at eight on Monday morning. Whatever the odometer reads as we come off the drive is mile nought.
I have been over it three times now. Not because it changes, but because looking at it is easier than looking at the list.
The list
The list is dull and the list is the whole thing.
Spares, laid out and counted rather than assumed. Tools, the ones for this car, rather expanded after recent fettles to include the spanners it really needs. Fluids. A spare set of points and a condenser, for reasons the last fortnight has made clear. Paperwork, which for us includes a letter confirming that we are entitled to take a car we do not own out of the country, because TS2 belongs to the TR Register and a customs officer at half past five in the morning is not the audience for a long story.
Then the things a French gendarme would like to see. Hi-vis for both of us, within reach rather than in the boot. Warning triangle. Headlamp deflectors.
Evie has been better at this than I have. Her list has boxes. Mine has arrows. We’ve both been juggling day jobs throughout the prep, so an early night is long overdue.
The boot
A sidescreen car doesn’t have wind up windows. It has large vinyl shields that slot into the doors. When they’re not installed, they ride along in the boot. With the spares and tools in there too, a certain amount of jiggling is required. Teenage years playing Tetris has paid off. Our trunk has so few air gaps in it, even the smell of fuel may not permeate.
The car
She works. All the effort has paid off. Special mention to Loukas at TRShop (New old stock rebuild kit for a 1953 master cylinder? Sure. You need it today?), Julian Taylor (who collected it on our behalf), and of course, Ray at TR Register Dorset, who gave more help than anyone could expect or deserve.
Many others I’ve run out of time to mention, but suffice to say we had TS2 up on the drive this afternoon for one more look. Nothing dramatic, which is the point.
Levels checked and checked again. Grease where grease goes. The brake pedal feels firm. The clutch engages fully, which two days ago I would not have bet on.
The plugs are still not telling the same story front to back, but we have run out of days to chase that properly. It idles. It pulls. We will read them again in France.
There is a moment near the end of this where you stop finding faults and start inventing them, and the useful thing to do is put the spanners down. So we did.
The list is finished. The car is as good as two people and a great deal of borrowed advice can make her.
Everything after this is the road.