Anyway, I return to the car coffee-less and we set to and check the fluids. Oil is grand, brake fluid is fine. Discretion being the better part of valour, we decided to leave the water alone. Given that there was nothing much we can do about it, we don’t bother doing a transmission fluid check. Ignorance is bliss. We have a bit of a think about petrol, but given that it is still near the three-quarters mark, we decide to be a bit cheeky and just go on without buying anything at the garage. Well, I did try to buy coffee. As we are shutting up the bonnet a guy pulls in an absolutely banjaxed Triumph which makes me feel a bit better about the state of the Jensen.

We fire up and she goes in under a second. My Mondeo doesn’t start as easy as this. So we were on our way again. After creeping through the town, we managed to find the A40 again. After a bit of messing about, we get back up to a 50mph cruise in a jiffy and is was fine. The rain even stops which does no end of good for the visibility. The road is even getting a bit better with patches of dual carriageway which gives those dying in our petrol fumes behind us a good chance to get past us. After a bit we came across a town called Bleugh, which can only mean that we had crossed into Wales. It is beginning to look like we might have a chance of making this.

Which is when we make our first major mistake. We are cruising along a nice bit of new dual-carriageway when Ger figures we are well overdue for a roundabout. Then it clicks, that the AA directions were out of date. We push on to the next exit from the dual-carriageway and then decide to work our way back to the right route rather than back-tracking 10 miles.

Putting her to the test

About 10 miles later, disaster strikes as we came across a tractor which is massively overloaded with hay. We are suddenly stuck climbing a steep hill at about 6mph. I knock on the fans, keep one eye glued to the temperature and start praying. We crawl for about 15 minutes and I can’t believe that the temperature stays locked about a third of the way between the mark and the hot area. Eventually, we hit the top of the incline and the tractor sets off like the hammers of hell down the other side. We get moving again and the guy pulls over at the next lay-by. We settle down but leave the fans on as the foot-well is beginning to get a tad toasty. We open up the windows and put on the cabin fans as well. The stink of petrol is unbelievable but the temperature actually drops right to the N mark. At this stage, we can no longer stick the smell so we shut off the cabin fans.

After another 10 miles or so of winding roads, we eventually rejoin the A40 and make firm resolutions to just do a U-turn the next time we go astray. We settle down for a bit of a cruise but when we hit Llandover, we decide we have had enough and both ourselves and the car could use a break. We find a nice car park to stop in, and so we pull over.