Before journey, check dates

For a person with extremely high IQ, I can be a real idiot sometimes.

Road trip today :-) I had two objectives : acquiring a steering wheel and wandering around Stoneleigh until my feet were too sore to walk any more.

The first part went just fine, although Coventry's roads are somewhat a) dangerous, b) clogged and c) confusing. Been noticing with new roads built lately, they're not building roads the way they used to. New roads hold the water. And that's definitely not a good thing. Roads are supposed to be designed so that the rainwater flows off them. Standing water shouldn't happen. Yet on the new A46 and the A45 around Coventry, the water stays on the road and creates dangerous puddles. Bright blue sky, no rain for a while, yet still a big chance of aquaplaning. Yep. Had one incident today when the traction control woke up to stop the car going sideways.

That's not good.

Yet on the M5 motorway, occasional apocalyptic rain saw really poor visual conditions but there was always sure footing under the car.

Ok. Steering wheel acquired - been meaning to pick up one of these ever since putting F1 2012 aside due to it really needing the right equipment to enable enjoyment of that game. On to Stoneleigh.

I had a feeling I'd messed up when I was approaching the showground. In my defence, I think I picked up on the show dates by misreading the ticket prices. I'd read the camping prices, thinking "cor ! not paying that to get in". I think that made Saturday as a show day lodge in my mind.

Oops. I figured it out when I read the signs for parking : "Sunday and Monday". Ah well. One successful roadtrip, just one day too early.

So off I pop on the way home, having not seen any kit cars. Not straight home though ... there was tell of a Bristol Motor Show on at the Mall, which put me in the right place for :

New trousers for work (yep - needed those)
Lurking round the Mall (Nerina Pallot cd and Superman blurays)
Sweetie shop (munchies !)
Iron Man 3

I have to say, the motor show isn't worth going to see. There's barely any manufacturers there. Even people like Audi (who have a showroom about 500 yards away) didn't turn up. No opportunity to check out the new Lexus.

Iron Man 3 is well worth seeing. The first two are great films, this one beats them. Far more story involved than the bangs and bumps of the first two. And I'm not telling anything cos it would be so easy to innocently spoilerise this film. If you enjoyed the first two, this one is even better. Definitely beats the Avengers movie.

I really enjoyed today. Yeah, I drove a couple of hundred miles and didn't get to see any kit cars. However. That's not the important thing.

I feel as if I have some of what people may call "mojo" back. It felt weird earlier to be able to jump in the car and just go somewhere, without having to worry about the implications of my skin condition. I'm not free of it yet, there is still a lot of me that looks like it's been dragged through a very thorny bush. But it's no longer at that level where it dominates my thinking.

I was thinking about that "weird" feeling. I'd describe it as "liberating". The point where you get your freedom back. I had options today. I had a text fairly late yesterday offering a game of cricket. I assessed my condition and thought - "yeah, could have played". I declined because I'd made other plans and playing a 40 over game of cricket in my current fitness condition would have been ... stupid. I can get away with evening games but need a lot more conditioning before trying longer games. That's if I'm able to play longer games any more anyway - I'm getting older and more broken inside.

Wasn't feeling broken today though. A fortnight ago, if I ran up the stairs I would have started bleeding from the back of my knees. (Seriously!) Today, the knees are very close to fully healed, which I wouldn't have believed a week ago. And I have my full movement available, which includes being able to dodge trucks when running across the road.

Yeah - really enjoyed it, despite the feelings of being an idiot. The road trip marks a change from reclusively dealing with the skin condition to hopefully being able to put it behind me and move on.

PS I also have a sugar mouse. Or should I say ... had.
PS2 That Spa trip just got a lot more viable :-)
PS3 Those Superman blurays mean I have a spare copy of Superman Returns on dvd now if anyone (local!) wants it