Nicholas Booth Dot Com

Today I took the Landrover and a friend from the village for a small green laning expedition. Guy has a Jeep, and was wondering what all the fuss was about – so I offered a few weeks ago to go out with him to see what it was like.

We did a few lanes – past Coldharbour cricket pitch towards Leith Hill Tower and then back to the road, Coldharbour to Wooton – a long and varied track with some awesome views of Dorking, and then we went to Ranmore and trundled gently down to the back of East Horsley.
That was three attractive and relatively straightforward runs – Guy got a chance to drive, and we had a very pleasant afternoon out in the sunshine. Not very muddy, and we met a small convoy of various Landrovers on the Leith Hill track. Plenty of walkers and some crazy cycle riders who whizzed past without warning.

Much, well a little, excitement on the way to work this morning – the River Mole at Betchworth had flooded the road, both sides of the bridge, so the Landy was the ideal vehicle to drive through. Sadly, though, it was only about a foot deep – so no problems at all, and no other cars seemed to be having any problems.

The water had subsided by the time I came home in the evening – but the weather forecast suggests that there might be more rain on Sunday so perhaps there will be another chance after that. Hope so!

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I just wanted to include this link to words by James May about the Landrover Defender.  In case you don’t know, that’s what I drive.  Just great fun.  I love thinking that I can go absolutely anywhere (and with the TD5, sometimes quite fast!)

Remember, they are tough motors: you can do this to them and walk away (no, actually I climbed out of the sunroof!) with only a broken thumb.  This is the one I rolled on a back road near Reigate in the summer of 2007.

When looking for a replacement I wasn’t too sure if the dealer sitting next to me on a test drive was too happy that he’d asked why I was looking for a new one.

Woke up this morning to new snow – another 2″ or so, which has fallen during the night.  Set off for work in the Landrover at 0800hrs, and although the roads are quite drivable and the landy coped just fine, the traffic was a nightmare.  By the time I got to Betchworth the pass through the North Downs at Pebblecombe was closed, the A25 movement going East was like driving in cold treacle – and the radio reports of the M25 junction at Reigate was that it was virtually gridlocked.  Decided best course was to return and WFH today.

Now I’m stuck trying to get Citrix to work the way I want!

Still #uksnow RH5 1/10