So, there I am, driving along at 15mph behind a big plastic heart on wheels. At first I thought it was a tomato, but at that speed it wasn't too difficult to catch up and find out for sure. Yup, something so surreal must mean it's parade season.
Parade season presents a minor quandary for a motoring hack, you see, one I busily debated with myself as we pottered around and one which frankly risks making us (well, me) look like a bunch of ungrateful prissy prima donnas for even questioning accepting an invite that others would gleefully snap up.
I don't think I am some kind of precious diva, I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure I'm not, so I don't have any compunction about sharing the dilemma.
Here's the background, and it applies to all parades and competitions, by the way, even this one is just fresh in my mind.
This year I entered my Elan in the Cholmondeley Pageant of Power. This was a big deal for me because, in the 12 years I have owned that I have never officially competed that car, determining way back when (so far way back when that I can't really remember why) that it would resolutely remain a road car.
So I put the forms in and was, after a bit of toing and froing, turned down. Fair enough, CPOP is all about valuable and historic machinery and far better and more important cars were turned away. I took it on the chin and have no axe to grind.
In letting me down gently, however, they offered me a place in the parade. I didn't really know what this entailed, but it didn't sound like it was for me so I told them "I am not really a parade kind of guy."