July 30th The Launch!

We wake at 7am..... and then again at 8. We go for breakfast but find neither of us are very hungry. Neil brings Marvin from the car park and we pack up and drive him half a mile to Hyde Park and the start of the launch party.
Met by Didi and Alan (Neil’s sister and brother in-law) who have come across to see us off. Soon more cars start arriving and we are encouraged to find most are as unprepared as us and just as nervous! Mark is there but has last seen his dad in their plastic pig ( a Reliant Robin 3 wheeler for those not in the know!) driving round and round Trafalgar Square.He arrives an hour or so later, driving across the Queens grass to reach us!
Tom starts his briefing..... no paperwork, no Mongolian import duty wavers, no lists of team mobile numbers and no lists of check-points - “I’ll email them to you” seems to be his solution to everything. We wander around catching up with people we met at the launch party.
Time for us to get dressed up in the top hats and tails (fashion essentials for the Squires... Neil's motorcycle club) which seem to go down well and we are pleased to find Marvin has enough headroom inside to wear them while driving! We meet Leonard (LeoJC) and wife Elizabeth and are pleased to find they are doing northern route too in their 2CV so we swap mobile numbers. We search for Damian and Julia (team Yakety Yak) but no one has seen them, so Jan phones Damian and we are told the dreadful news – they have no electrics on their 2CV Moo Moo. We can’t help them as we are not the ‘2cv experts’ people seem to think we are, so we pass on a couple of phone numbers and wish them luck but they are determined to join the rally even if it means starting later. It's a real downer to the start of the rally.
And suddenly its time to go... Justin leads the convoy as he seems to be the only person that has any knowledge of London. We all line up and then leave through a corridor of cheering onlookers. Absolute mayhem as we try to visit Buck House, Trafalgar Square and Westminster... We cause total grid lock by Trafalgar Square as we drive around the roundabout numerous times in order to line all the teams together, it takes half an hour to clear. Tourists gawp clap and video us all. Then eventually we make a break for freedom and Dover.

We arrive in Dover and make a last trip to Halfords to pick up a few bits. The manager comments ” You must be mad... it’s Brilliant!” We join the others at the docks and make last minute repairs in the queue to get on the ferry.

At this point we discover that our in car charging system is defunct - out of 4 sockets only one works. We open it up and find broken wires inside. A race to the shop gets us a single socket to wire in when we get time.

The ferry is half an hour late but then we are loaded. Next stop Boulogne.

While waiting to board we discover Mark (Team Reliant)has charging problems with his Pig, so we decide to head out on our own. Our plan to go through France is scrapped as we realise it is all toll roads - so with full tank of gas we set off up the coast to Belgium - midnight finds us around Brussels - time to gas up again and Jan to take the wheel!!!!

PS a new laptop and an old Hardrive... and we are back to our story!