Friday morning and David arrives on time for once, mainly because Hannah drops him off. He has to have Kara with him this weekend because Hannah is on 12 hour night shifts at the hospital and her sister is away in Spain. We load as much of his gear in DHR as I can fit. Hair gel, face cream etc. etc. Kara travels light by comparison. Spot arrived at 10:30 which was earlier than expected so we look over the HC and HB front chassis rails with a cuppa. Steve Coote has kindly lent me an HB rail to compare with the HC one we cut off an old car. Not to much difference apart from the bulkhead section and the fact that the HB is slightly longer. Spot also tells me Edd and Steve are coming here so we can go up in convoy again like last year. They arrive on time at 11 and another cuppa is called for. After a slow but uneventful journey up we arrive about 1:30ish I think. We find Sid and family lost in the lower fields so they follow us to our pitch. Flod is already there as usual. We put the tents up in minutes and get the kettle on again. Okay it took me ages again but I did put it up all by myself this year. After general Viva chat we hit the auto jumble. Big mistake on my part as I blow most of the money on me quicker than I put the tent up. I did get my new rear bumper for DHR for £20 though. Like a magpie I took all my goodies back to my nest. The rest of the night was spent drinking and taking the mickey and generally having a good time.

Saturday morning comes round far to quick and I reluctantly rise from my pit to find Spot had made me tea. The weather this year is great, very hot and no rain due. We set the cars up in a sort of arc and again head for the auto jumble. As I'm walking down the centre Steve Coote calls me over and shows me where there is a chassis rail for an HB. £40 secures it and I squirrel it away in my store. That will save any messing about with the HC rails now. Good call Steve! It was very hot and by the afternoon I could feel that I'd caught the sun. Looking in the mirror I saw I was starting to get panda eyes so took my glasses off as and when I could. I chatted to loads of people and viewed many cars. The evening was spent the same as always except Spot and I hit the red wine on a Saturday night as well.

The Outlaws AGM was held and went on for about half an hour, which is twenty five minutes longer than usual. After this the awarding of the chod award took place. This prestigious award is given to the person who has made the most cock-ups through the year...and once again I won it. I thought this unfair as all my cock-ups were small ones where others did one major one. The one that seems to have swayed it my way was the welding of a screwdriver to the floor of Edd's GT. I will state here and now that I won't win it next year. I packed up at about midnight as I was knackered. I can't get off to sleep in a tent.

Sunday and another sunny day arrived. Same routine as always, breakfast then auto-jumble. During each day we must go over the jumble at least three times if not more. We still see bits you hadn't noticed before. In the afternoon David won one of the raffle prizes which pleased him, a book and model car. David and Kara left with Hannah, (who had come up after work on Saturday), about five. Kara was as good as gold, better in fact than David! We got ready to go to Vinnie's Indian restaurant as always in the evening. Before we went Joanne phoned and told me that the weather forecast said we would get terrible rain overnight from about one onwards. The decision was made to go to my house tonight, instead of camping, as we were going to Edd's barn on Monday anyway. That way we could sleep in a bed and pack the tents away dry and only be 40 minutes from Edd's. Only down side was that I'd just paid £20 to stay Sunday night. So Flod, Sid, Mrs Sid and Master Sid, Paul, Edd, Spot and myself went to Vinnie's then packed up everything into the cars ready for the off. Flod and Sid had already packed so left straight away. With everything stowed away we started the cars. Or rather Spot and I started our cars. Edd's car Ermintrude, would not start. Edd had been tinkering over the weekend. All three of us have our batteries in the boot and guess what...they were full. Spot removed some of his stuff and backed up to Ermintrude so we could attach Edd's jump leads. They were to short. I then dug out my leads from DHR's full boot. Still Ermintrude wouldn't start. It was dark by now and Paul bottomley, over on the hill, was having a good laugh at our expense. (He couldn't drive home as he'd already had to much to drink during the day). In the end we bump started the car and away we went. We put Edd in the middle of our convoy as his lights were as strong as a torch with the batteries taken out. As we were driving through the roadwork's on the M1 near Luton I chickened out and pulled into Toddington services for petrol. I kept thinking of three Viva's stuck with no hard shoulder, one without any lights, and no hazards on the busy M1. The petrol station was closed so I stuck my can in after digging around in the full boot to find it. Edd then decided he to needed petrol as well but we didn't want to turn the car off, so Spot stuck a can in while Edd kept it running. We arrived home about 11:45 and said we'd tighten the loose wires on Edd's car now as we didn't fancy doing it in the pouring rain Monday morning.

Monday morning we awoke to glorious sunshine! At which point Joanne has now had her name changed to Michele Fish. What happened to all the rain I don't know but it didn't all day. Over at Edd's barn I got burnt again. So we all wasted a nights money at Billing, we all missed out on our chill out Sunday night and Joanne will get stick for years to come. I wonder if that can go on the chod list?

Overall another great weekend. Billing is the best weekend away by far if you love camping, a friendly atmosphere, a good laugh and buying loads of rusty bits of junk in broken boxes!