Diary - Day 2

Sunday 26th August 2007

T's Diary...

Today had been going really, really well until we were almost home and I began to feel quite unwell. I've spent most of the evening trying to find a position for my leg that would ease the swelling, discolouration and pain but just had no luck at all. Standing up seemed to make the discolouration disappear but I couldn't do that for very long. I am just hoping that the rest tonight might help and that I'll be ok to carry on tomorrow.

Apart from not feeling so good I have had a great day. Finally I was comfortable in the dress and a lot less self conscious which really helped me to relax. We found some of the T/Andrew banter early on in the day and I was pleased to be having a laugh and a joke whilst attempting to look like I knew which way up the map went ;o) I was also really pleased that we managed to collect all our 'must get' items for the day and the egg managed to make it the 2 days without a single crack! Things have gone well!

This evenings meal was a bit of a disaster due to extremely poor service! However, the company more than made up for the wait and before long it was time for me to get some rest. I really hope that I will be feeling better in the morning and that I can make it to the 'finish line'. It's hard to feel that you may not be able to complete something you have worked so hard for :o(

Andrew's Diary...

Cambridge
Kings Lynn
Peterborough
Leicester (Walker stadium)
Warwick

After what seemed like only 10 minutes sleep we were up again and preparing for day 2. A task we were given on day 1 was to protect an egg from any damage for 2 days and it had its own little nest in my Top Hat. Talj was feeling a little worse for wear after day 1 but like the trooper she is she brushed off the pain and after breakfast we were soon heading to Cambridge.

I've driven the route to Cambridge many many times and for me this stretch was rather boring and along the way we picked up some MacDonalds sugar sachets. The Navman was busy with messages this morning and, if I use it again next year will have it on the passenger side as I shouldn't reply whilst driving ;)

We picked up the clue for our next destination but got stumped on finding a cheap Pay and Display ticket (the meters are turned off on Sunday's as its free parking). After a failed attempt to get a cheap ticket in a car park (cost me £1.10) for a 30 second stay Talj dreamt up an idea of paying a business to park on their land. I tried this at a pub but failed miserably and, when Talj returned with another item (blue Smarties) she adjusted her dress and headed over to a valeting shop. We parked up there for a minute and displayed our P&D ticket that cost a penny (well done Talj).

Next we drove over to Kings Lynn and we found the reason for the chalk in our pack (Brass rubbing). After checking out the flood levels at the church it was over the road to the Guildhall to do the Brass Rubbing and quite a queue of BBR'ers was building up to rub their brasses! There was a guy outside the Guildhall waiting to cover the brass with a poster and I asked him if he had a copy of the Lynn News. He returned a few minutes later without a paper but with a big bunch of keys and he took me next door to the Gaol Museum and handed me a bunch of papers. For a small donation I was promised this stash of papers would not fall into any other BBR'ers hands.

Next was a drive to the centre of Peterborough and we parked up close to the Cathedral and I set off to gather the required treasure. We had to change radio frequencies as we were sharing our band with a local Taxi Firm and ended up on the same band as the shop detectives lol.

Talj radioed me to say that the 'posh' item I needed was nothing to do with horse and hounds or Victoria Beckham but that Peterborough FC are also known as 'The Posh'(I should have known that). Talj wasn't that clever that she worked it out herself, 2 motorcyclists had stopped at the car and were chatting to her about the event and my car (one of the guys had an 80bhp Roadster). They had no money on them but went away to the cash point and came back with a generous donation. I'm sure the donation was for the BBR but they had spent a while leaning through the open roof (I'll say no more).

It was now well past lunchtime and the only place we could find to stop was a layby on the A47 and Graham H (my old boss) sent a message via Navman wondering what we were doing lol.

We then headed into Leicester to pick up a used Bingo Ticket with our car number on it and a used Cinema Ticket before heading off to the Walker Stadium to find our final destination for day 2 - its was Warwick.

As we headed 'home' I remembered we were having a quiz tonight and suddenly we realised that on each clue the 'interesting facts' at the bottom of the clues were there for a reason. Talj read the facts out in the car but none of it was sinking in (plus I'd lost the Peterborough clue)

Again, we were greeted with beer and soft drinks at the car park as we all chatted about the days 256 mile drive before changing ready for what would be a rather long dinner!

Just before we left for dinner we split the interesting facts and wrote down the important facts hoping to have time during dinner to revise (Talj had just about learnt all of hers and was starting to learn mine). I won't go on about the service at dinner because I enjoyed the almost 2 hours of banter waiting for the starters to arrive. The quiz was postponed as it was now so late which meant we might be able to learn some more before breakfast.

Talj was now having great difficulty walking and in great pain so we went to bed agreeing if things were no better in the morning we'd have to miss the final day.