Too Wet!

We were not planning on moving yesterday anyway, but boy did it rain. We were very close to Brooklands Museum on the site of the old Brooklands racing circuit. So after a lazy start to the day, a good long read in bed with the wind and rain doing its stuff outside, we had a bacon butties for breakfast and set off to walk to the museum.  It was a bit further than we thought, and just as we got to the site, the rain really fell down and very soon we were soaked. It was a long drive way in past the hotel, past Mercedez-Benz World and onto the Museum, and we had to walk it!

The 2,75 mile racing track was built  in 1907 by Hugh Locke-King and his wife, who were car racing enthusiasts and quickly became a favourite spot for racing and a number of world records were made here. It was well used up until WWII when it became a centre for aircraft building, and was not used as a race track again. The museum celebrates its racing history and other transport too.
In an old workshop built and used by Sir Malcolm Campbell to develop his Bluebird land-speed record holders there were many old racing cars, motorbikes and cycles.

Outside in the aircraft hangars were various old aeroplanes, (that's about as technical as I can be!) There was an interesting display about the work of Barnes-Wallis and the development of the bouncing bomb used to break the Mohne Dam in Germany.

There was also a collection of London buses in a large new garage building.

The race pavilion where the course clerks kept a close eye on proceedings, with rooms for the ladies and gentlemen to while away time waiting for races to start.

The 1:8 hill climb for testing cars.

And the famous concrete embankments, 100 ft wide, rising some 30 feet. It was built in 9 months with the majority of the concrete being mixed by hand.  It was a good day out, despite the rain. We had mostly dried out by this time, but were looking forward to getting home and lighting the fire.

Then with exceptionally good timing my brother rang to say he was close by and was coming to see us, so he picked us up and took us back to Tacet. So we were able to have dinner together and catch up on family news.



We have had a little bit of rain today, but not so bad, and we have moved up the locks as far as we are able to St Johns. More about that tomorrow.