Branches tidied up, Pitchcroft, Tuesday, 26th July, 2016.

This photo is not so much to illustrate that they (whoever 'they' are) have been out to clear up the fallen branches but more to prove that Vicky has more than one 'blog outfit'.

David, on the other hand, has zillions of outfits. Albeit, ones that are all very similar.

Bit like his collection of rawk albums then.

Branching out: Pitchcroft, Sunday, 24th July, 2016.

This tree lost three branches on Thursday night and I took a couple of photos on my Friday walk to record the fact. Unfortunately, there was nothing around to provide a sense of scale.

So, here we are on our Sunday evening walk and the problem's solved!

One of the branches fell into the fork of another tree's branch (thinking about it, I should have taken a photo of that) and so it will be interesting to see how long the one can support the other.

The whole thing shows how dry and brittle the trees are in this age of global warning, and that's despite the river flooding every now and again and the resultant high water table under the racecourse.

We spend the rest of our relaxing walk nervously glancing up into every other tree we pass to try to discern whether any other dry and brittle branches might fall upon our fragile bonces.

Beautiful evening, by the way. 19c, sunny, with a lovely fresh breeze.

Rock Choir, Worcester Racecourse, Sunday, 17th July, 2016.

Walked to Homebase this morning and are now on the way back home.

Pitchcroft is home to a Race For Life today and Rock Choir are providing some light relief for participants and folk walking home from Homebase.

Not sure how 'Rock' they are but we'll let that one slip.

View of proceedings from The Grandstand.

We liked Rock Choir's version of Stevie Winwood's Higher Love 

which was about as 'rocky' as it got.

International Caterpillar Rescue: Pitchcroft, Saturday, 16th July, 2016.

Evening walk along Pitchroft and there's several of these little fellas wot have fallen out of the trees.

This one, being right in the middle of the path, is particularly vulnerable 

to the vagaries of walkers and cyclists.

Vicky moves in with the old 'flick it with a leaf' trick and it is soon out of harm's way.

Now it's only got non-human predators to worry about.

Mandy's cats and dogs, Atch Lench, Friday, 15th July, 2016.

Jasper the cat, previously the 'Top Dog', is not impressed by the arrival of new puppy Mocha…...

……..so quickly takes to the all-important high ground.

Mandy and Vicky assert their authority (yeah right).

Chilli with summat to chew on.

Lucy & Jasper.

Saying goodbye to Chilli.

A bit later, back at HQ, Vicky is hard at work finishing off a second coat of emulsion for the bathroom.

Note Howard supervising.

Vicky always prides herself on her powers of communication.

Here she is telling David to naff-off to the kitchen to get on with the ironing.

He's got 60 mins worth.

60 mins? That's 3 sides of vinyl. 

Both sides of New Gold Dream by Simple Minds, followed by the first side of 

Agents Of Fortune by Blue Oyster Cult.

The former is from 1981, while the later is 5 years earlier.

That's 37 years and 42 years ago by our dodgy maths.

How quickly time passes.

Frightening.

F1 Official Test, Silverstone, Tuesday, 12th July, 2016.

1:15pm-ish:

Strange drive here today. P*ss*d down all the way to Banbury and then, suddenly, it cleared up.

We had planned to stop in Farthinghoe for a nice lunch given that it is forecast to rain all day but, given the fact it wasn't raining there, we decided to keep on going to Silverstone only to find that we have arrived just in time for a lunch break. 

So nothing's happening at the moment and, to top it all, the 5:00pm Pit Lane Walk 

has been put back to 6:30pm.

Could be a loooooooong afternoon.

Leaving the grandstand in search of a cuppa tea and summat to eat we pass by what, we presume, are naked Portaloos that look as tho' they were well-used over the weekend.

Nice.

Back in the grandstand a local Pied Wagtail keeps us entertained.

1:45-ish:

It's drizzling now but a Ferrari is out on track!

Everyone gets ready for a photo op but it's only an installation lap 

and the b*gg*r comes straight back into the pits.

The commentator reckons the cars will only get down to serious testing if the track is either bone dry or soaking wet.

Everyone crosses their fingers and hopes that the heavens open pronto.

2:15pm-ish:

Conditions are now nice and tricky.

Carlos Sainz in the Torro Rosso goes straight on at the entry to Club 

but just about keeps it out of the barriers.

Probably a good piece of driving then.

The face of someone who wished we'd stuck to the plan and 

stopped in Farthinghoe for summat decent to eat.

Sainz refuses to be fazed by his recent semi-off and continues to splash 

past as everyone records the moment.

Nice spray vortex.

Pierre Gasly in the Red Bull.

3:15-ish:

Fernando Alonso in the McLaren does the most laps and sets the quickest time of the day.

Here he is through Club Corner. Even on a soaking track he looks on it.

It says summat about the temperature today that Vicky has decided only a hot chocolate will do.

Most welcome an' all.

4:00pm-ish:

Slippin' and slidin':

Sergey Sirotkin in the Renault at Club.

6:00pm:

The Test finishes and we join the queue for The Pit Lane Walk as the heavy rain 

that we drove through earlier finally arrives.

The queue is even longer than the last time we came to a Test Day.

Great. Strangely, nobody complains. Neither do we.

It's all part of the fun!

6:45pm:

It's taken 15 mins to get into the Pit Lane from the time the queue started to move.

We start off at the Manor garage and then wander up to the Mercedes garage. 

Everyone wants to see Lewis but he ain't here.

He'll be in sunnier climes for a touch or R 'n' R no doubt and so his car is in the capable hands of Pascal Wehlein today. But there's no sign of him either. Oh well.

The Williams in its Martini colours is a thing of great beauty.

When doing a Pit Lane Walk in the p*ss*ng rain it is important 

to remain both optimistic and determined.

We'll leave it to your imagination to decide whether this chap has the necessary qualities.

Some expensive aerodynamic bit and pieces belonging to Alonso's McLaren.

F1 teams constantly complain about the costs of racing.

If they did away with all the expensive aerodynamics they could halve the costs overnight.

Just a thought.

You know we said we started off at the Manor garage? Well, here's one of the photos we took.

Ray Sengineer.

Bet you've always wondered what he looks like.

This particular one works at Mercedes.

Daniel Riccardo's Red Bull is ready for its close-up.

Vicky says the new Red Bull colour scheme is too bright and garish and has lost its class.

It's the blue: it's too dark nowadays. It used to be brighter - fizzier, if you will.

OK OK, don't panic. I can see it and I'm sure I can retrieve it.

McLaren technicians hard at it.

7:15pm-ish:

Yay! It's a driver!

Williams reserve driver Alex Lynn to be precise.

We've seen him growing up over the last few years. From Renault 2.0, through Euro F3, and now GP2 and F1 Test Driver. It's what the sport's all about: watching drivers and riders and seeing how far they get towards the very top.

Anyway, enough of all that, it's time to get going.

The drive back home is easy-ozee and we arrive safe and sound at 8:45pm.

The sun was shining and everything!

Wild flowers (again), Worcester, Monday, 11th July, 2016.

A lovely walk into town today along the river and then past the Railway Viaduct where these wild meadow flowers are thriving.

We stop to take a few photos (as you do) and by the time we get to Elgar's for lunch we both have 'insects walking about in our eye-balls' (aka hayfever), as Vicky describes it.

Funny that.

Deltawing, Sunday, 10th July, 2016.

Moth or…….

……Vulcan bomber with……..

……VTOL?

F1 British GP, Silverstone, Friday, 8th July, 2016.

8:45am and we've arrived.

Up at 5, out at ten past seven, straight into the car park no hassle at all (unlike last two F1 GP's we've attended here), so that's a huge improvement. Could have stayed in bed a bit longer!

It'll get warmer later, so they say, but it's quite cool at the mo'.

So, Vicky:

Layers? Check.

Umbrella? Check.

Cameras? Check.

Tickets? Check.

Car Park Pass on windscreen? Check.

Dosh? Check.

Noted where we have parked? Check.

OK, let's go!

9:15-ish:

Arrived at Luffield after a short queue to get in and a baggage check and it's time for the first cup of tea of the day in time to wander over to the nearest grandstand to find some seats.

10:05-ish and the F1 cars are on track for the first practice session of the day.

Sebastien Vettel (Ferrari) demonstrates the new-fangled safety-hoop-thingy.

Lewis is on track!

Everyone in the grandstands and on the terraces go loopy.

Lewis waves.

Everyone waves back (except those taking photos, that is).

It's a veritable love-in.

The wonderful thing about Luffield is that you can get photos of cars going left to right - every other corner is right to left.

Ocon (Haas) & Massa (Williams) are the drivers providing some welcome diversity.

Talking of diversity, a group of 'Grid Girls' have arrived to cheer everyone up.

We've never heard so many wolf-whistles.

11:30-ish and the session draws to a close.

Lewis is fastest and, look, he's still waving to all and sundry. He hasn't stopped all session.

Imagine how fast he could go if he kept both hands on the wheel.

11:40-ish.

Getting warmer now.

I need a tea, Vic!

12:10-ish.

Life-size Tonka Toy at Luffield as GP2's come out for their Practice Session.

12:15-ish.

Walking along the Luffield Terracing as GP2 driver Mitch Evans (NZ) negotiates the corner.

12:30-ish.

We've wandered up the outside of The Wellington Straight hoping to get some high-speed panning shots of the GP2's but we are thwarted by dint of it being used as a Truck Park.

Vicky loves her trucks so at least one of us is happy.

12:40-ish.

Eventually, the trucks thin out and we can take some panning shots.

This is GP2 driver Pierre Gasly (FRA).

He'll be popular when he gets back to the Pits.

Luca Ghiotto (ITA) went straight on at Village and now waits shame-faced for the arrival of the break down truck and a lift back to civilisation.

1:30-ish.

Having had another cuppa tea, and a pastie shared between us, we've now made our way to Silverstone's newest grandstand overlooking Abbey: The View.

This is the view from…ahem…The View.

The temperature has now risen to 23 degrees and we are roasting nicely.

1:50-ish:

No matter what yer driving, Abbey has to be taken flat out.

What's the betting the driver of the track cleaning truck is making 'neeee-ooww' noises?

2:05-ish:

Proper people with 'big b*lls' taking Abbey flat out.
Vicky says Vettel looks really fast through here but actually isn't,
whilst Lewis doesn't look so fast but actually is.

2:30-ish:

Sparks will fly:

Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull twixt Abbey and Farm.

2:45-ish:

Left the View Grandstand now to take some shots at ground level.

This is Pascal Wehrlein (GER) in a Manor Racing MRT.

2:55-ish:

We've found a new pond at Silverstone, behind the Farm Grandstand.

It's full of water lilies and killer-coi-carp (oh yes).

3:10-ish:

Slowly heading back towards the exit now.

Still time for a shot of Max Verstappen (NED) in his Red Bull on The Wellington Straight.

3:20-ish:

An out-of-sequence shot taken earlier to show that we had our last cuppa tea at Brooklands before heading back to the car park to beat the rush after the end of the afternoon F1 session.

3:30-ish:

Walking over the bridge back to the car park.

We have had a fantastic day but it is time to leave now 'cos we are knackered.
According to my Fit Bit, we have done almost 10,000 steps and walked 4.25 miles. We have paced ourselves today and that's not as far as we usually walk here.

The drive home takes a lot longer than the one to get here: about 1hr 45 mins.

Vicky says it is no worse than any other Friday drive home on the M40, M42, and the M5.

Well, she should know!