The mission for today was to pootle up the A1 in the landrover to deepest darkest Lincolnshire to collect my trailer compressor.

The mothership was at the wheel so I think it is only fair to point out in this semi-public forum a 40-year deeply hidden secret. She is from SCUNTHORPE. And it was mere miles from there we headed to collect the gear.

It is a beauteous thing resplendent in mustard and reassuringly chunky.

As easy to switch on as a car ignition and with only 600 hours on the clock… You can probably tell by this point that I have got deeply deeply into plant and all semi-industrial equipment. So much so that I have now purchased my own Dickies boiler suit in flame red. You gotta look the part, eh?

A massive thank you goes out to the guys at T A Industries. They were charming, super helpful and even donated the
Tow bar so we had lights to drag it home. Quite liked Lincolnshire generally – the most retro service stations you have ever seen, the Red Arrows doing practice fly bys and everyone calls you “Duck”. What’s not to like.

There was inevitable a slight technical hitch… The landrover had the wrong tow bar. I had to buy a brand new orange tow bar thingy. The guys at T A Industries very kindly bolted it on to the back. It did however cost me several bottles of wine at the pub before I could show Nigel quite what had been bolted to the back of his pride and joy.

A final thank you goes to Tony. Advanced RAF parking skills meant he could “fish tail” it round and reverse it through the gates!

Onwards to Rye tomorrow!