One last time ...

Last race of the season, Portimao in the Algarve. A manic day on Wednesday at work, with several client meetings, then it was off to Gatwick for my easyJet flight... And it all started to go a bit awry ... Our flight was delayed but they were very poor at giving out information, so we all stood around the boards waiting for news, flight time came and went, the board still said 'wait in lounge' ... An hour after takeoff time it changed straight to 'Last Call' prompting a stampede, all a bit unnecessary I'd have thought. The upshot was arrival in Faro some 1hr and 40mins after scheduled time, so it was 2300 before I was picking up my hire car ...

Lancia have built some great cars in their history, and for many the Integrale is one of the best cars of all time, I have one and love it! So I was initially interested to try one of their latest offering ... What an awful motorcar, quite the worst thing I've driven (well modern thing anyway), horrible driving position, awful steering, a decent gust will have the car switch lanes on the motorway, lots of wind/road noise, and completely gutless ... There are no real mountains on the motorway from Faro to Portimao, and yet I'm having to change down on the hills; I'd have to do that in our 4 tonne Motorhome but surely not one-up with light luggage in this .... Grrr.

These things come in threes don't they ...

Found the Algarve Casino Hotel about 0030 and checked in, or tried to ... "Mr Owen, you're not arriving till tomorrow". Me: "it is tomorrow...". That apparently wasn't the point. It also seems they think I'm turning up with a friend, a Mr James Bulkeley, this is as much of a surprise to me as I imagine it would be to the other chap ... I've never heard of him, and wasn't really expecting to share a room with some random new 'friend'. It's the middle of the night, and I want some sleep, little point in arguing, I hand over a credit card to pay for a room for tonight and I am told I'll have to check out again in the morning, then check in again later with 'my friend'. I wander off to bed down. The hotel is free for us, part of the deal, so a quick email gets sent to the organisers before I actually get to sleep.

Tomorrow is another day... We'll sort it out then.