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Friday September 23rd 2005 - Morning
So, I'm sat in the back of the Volvo travelling at 130kph recalling the events of the morning. Day 1.
My complete unconsciousness was rudely disturbed by the sound of my phone ringing. It was pitch black outside. Who would dare call me at this hour I thought as I looked at my phone. It was, however, my alarm clock at the time was 15mins before breakfast. One sandwich de Jambon et Fromage later, we were heading off to the Port d'Angleterre for the mornings registration. The PA system was hooked up and hmm.. sounds of F1 theme were crackling out from the roof. The registration this morning was quite something as it was the first time we'd seen all the entrants together. And my - what a lot of rubbish there was! An angry looking frenchman wondered over bearing a walkie talkie and asked who was organising the group. Fortunately, it transpired he just wanted to make us park in the parking bays and not just randomly across the car park as we were. And so, we were ready for the off. An orchestra of air horns signaled us to join the line queing for the start. Unfortunately, our part in the symphony was cut short as our horn gave up. :( Still, we'd switched to playing Eye of the Tiger out the PA instead. Simon was the first to notice the odd burning smell but it wasn't until I questioned why the crackling sounds from our roof were degenerating into a soft farting noise that did we twig Mike's hastily assembled amp was infact melting down. Ah well - no horn and no sound for us :(
The challenge for the day is to take photographs of cars whose colours represent the sequence of potting balls in a snooker game. Red, Black, Red, Black etc.. I was the first to take the drivers seat and the first two hours past uneventfully with Mike happily snapping away with his camera in the back.
Friday September 23rd 2005 - Midday
Having swapped driver, with Mike now at the helm, it was my turn to take the photographs. Unfortunately, Mike's camera and I did not agree so I find myself sorting out the web page and hunting for my mysteriously missing Goldfrapp cd.. hmm..
Friday September 23rd 2005 - Evening
By the end of the day we had collected a pretty respectable selection of photographs. Sadly we hadn't managed to spot a pink car, but otherwise we collected what must have been one of the highest sets of points across all the teams. (Fingers crossed). We arrived in Saarnen almost 9 hours after having left Calais and were pretty knackered. Saarnen had been hard hit by flooding just 2 weeks before we arrived, but the clear-up operation was well under way. The kitchen at the Metzgern hotel where we were meeting was officially out of action, but they'd still somehow managed to organise a banquet for all the competitors. Our particular hotel was a few miles up the road in Kerns so we set off for an early night and to try and catch up on our Clint Eastwood knowledge. By an hour and 10 minutes into "A Few Dollars More" we were all pretty much asleep and so called it a day. All in all, a pretty good day 1.
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