My multi-lingual prowess just oozes. Whilst Bridget drove effortlessly from Neumunster to Svendborg in Denmark I busied myself learning Danish and German. Well nearly. I learnt of Egeskov Castle (or Egeskov Slot, etc.) from Jan and Aakke in Niekerk. What grabbed my attention was the fact that they have a motor museum in the grounds. In fact they have no less than 10 museums including cars, motorcycles and aircraft.
This is Denmark's answer to Beaulieu National Motor Museum. The castle itself has a number of interesting features including the fact that it has no large open fireplaces, but instead has a series of large cast iron wood-burners in each room. There is a large selection of medieval weapons and various native African weapons that one of the residents brought back from a visit there.
The motor museum has no less than three MG's, being a 1600 MGA, a MGC and a 1935 MG Magna that is recorded to have raced at Brooklands...
I decided to ride my hire bicycle into Alkmaar first thing in the morning to take some photos before getting on the road. We only had a couple of hours motoring to do so I had plenty of time. Just 1 km from the centre of town and there was a bang behind me and the rear wheel jammed solid, skidding left and right before I managed to stop. I alighted to investigate what had happened and saw bits of half inch wide elastic sticking out from the wheel hub. Most hire bikes in The Netherlands are supplied with a parcel rack on the rear mudguard and something for holding luggage in place and prevent it from falling off, in this case elastic. This had somehow got entwined in the rear wheel and caused the trouble. I managed to free most of it, but couldn’t help to mentally draw parallels between bicycles and MG’s!
I eventually remounted the cycle only to...
The second days' motoring and we progressed to the town of Alkmaar, some 30 miles north of Amsterdam.
Bridget was content to cruise at a comfortable 60/65 miles an hour and never stumbled once. The weather on the other hand was very poor.
Regulars will testify that I don't just motor everywhere and have been moved on occasions to alternative modes of transport e.g. paragliding, jet-skiing, etc. In the interests of research I persuaded myself that I should sample the national mode of transport in The Netherlands, namely cycling. Now, it is over 20 years since I last rode a bike, but everyone here seems to do it and the whole road network appears to be designed around it. So I parked up Bridget for the day and hired a bicycle.
It was some 5 kilometres into the centre of Alkmaar from my hotel and after a slightly shaky start I was soon town bound in the correct cycle lane. Similar to the...
Bridget was supposed to be ready in December 2012, then March 2013 and finally by the beginning of this week (17th June). However, the engine still wasn't running smoothly under load on the morning of the 19th June and that only left 36 hours.
Dave Cook, at Kennington Motors, suggested I took her to a rolling road in a last ditch attempt to solve the problem, but where would I be able to get her in at such short notice. Enter R.J.Bradley and Son of Shipton-Under-Wychwood. Andrew, who runs the business, agreed to help if I could get her there for 2:00pm and using their superb facility, and their own expertise, they quickly diagnosed the problems and resolved them.
By close of play Thursday, Bridget appeared to be running perfectly and all of her niggling electrical problems were cleared too. With just a 23 mile shakedown run we would leave Oxfordshire first thing Saturday morning, just 24 hours late.
There were just two...
