Back to the depot

Well, the bus and I made it safely home after our Brides on a Bus adventure. All told, I drove 1647 miles in the two weeks. Undoubtedly the best shakedown our 30 year-old Leyland Titan has had in years! It blew the cobwebs away. A few other things came away too, but I was able to fix them with ingenious roadside repairs. I thought I was in trouble when a crucial nut-and-bolt assembly absented themselves from the front doors. The nut vanished, presumably onto the verge somewhere in the middle of the Cotswolds. How was I going to find a suitable spare? As luck would have it, I needed to look no further than the coach parked next to me. The friendly driver (and coach drivers in the UK are, in my experience, generally delightful chaps) grinned broadly as he opened one of the luggage lockers to reveal an enormous Spares box, brimming with nuts, bolts, washers etc. Within minutes, we were back in business.

Talking of coach matters, my eye was caught by this sign on the back of a vehicle on the M6

In my previous post, I referred to the extraordinary Nove & van Day singing double act. Now that I'm back at base I can offer photographic evidence...

A number of people have said we should go far. Very far.

So, there we are. Bus adventures over for the moment. Now it's back to the rest of my world, the studio, voice-overs and the radio broadcasting biz. Big changes to come at Radio 2 at the turn of the year, as Sir Terry Wogan retires from his breakfast show. People keep asking me what effect this will have on my work. I wish I knew! Right now, the search is on for a radio manager who remembers that I can do more than read the news. And when I find one, I hope we'll make sweet music together.