I’m not sure how lucid I can be. It’s 9.30pm and we are in bed exhausted. I might even be beyond words

Unbelievably, we are still sharing a bed given my performance today . In fact I’m not sure how we are even sharing a life together and can only say things need to improve for this to last

I was soo nervous this morning at 5.30am . My very new best friends Faith, Frances and Andrew, fellow competitors (because there are still nice, kind people who think it’s about the camaraderie and the journey and not the winning 👏👏👏😀😀😀) had given me a crash course in tulip maps, time sheets, timing equipment and GPS the day before, and at last I finally felt I was beginning to get some sort of grasp on the dark art of navigation. In fact I fancied I might be in with a chance; clearly delusional . I’d diligently marked up my books and learned the route . I almost could paint you a picture from memory. Yes, I had it 😀😀😀

It all started so well….

Zero Trip (Distance thing) at hotel exit

Rt at 1.28 km

And click, I’d navigated us across one cycle lane (where the public at large roam about on bikes, scooters, feet in all directions) and 5 lanes of hideous traffic and onto ring road 4 . Another few clicks and we’d correctly ticked off 5 sets of lights , an underpass, shopping centre , and we were on the G6 🙌. In no time we were standing looking at the Great Wall where the Chinese had whipped up a bit of a welcome party to see us off, complete with dragons and drums. Lots of curious Chinese were taking photos, which as we know is a national pastime , to the extent they even wanted pictures with the old lady and man, who were decked out in matching red P&PdoP2P logo’d T shirts , which my brother in law had very kindly designed and given to us at Christmas . We added Chinese hats for the spirit of the thing

And so at 8.25 precisely (rally people are truly obsessive about time; another of my failings ) the flag dropped on car 71 and off we set

To start with we completed a regularity section, which involves not just map reading but keeping your driver to the average set speed over bloody 8kms in this case. This is meant to involve speed charts, which I forgot about 😫and took to working it out in my head 🤔

Then the Marshall jumped out of a hedge at a surprise speed check . Unsurprisingly I had absolutely no idea by then and only P’s previous experience stopped him from being run over . To add insult to injury they then threw in another regularity section . This time I remembered the charts, but got the columns confused and read out the 60kmph column instead of the 50

Not disheartened, the afternoon contained a wild section over a dessert mountain landscape, right up P’s street . real rallying ! We tore up the gravel pass in a solar storm of dust, car sliding sideways, Pirelli tyres gripping like mad. Never mind the sheer drop our little Tiger was truly spectacular. Hurrah, we were back in the race

Then on to an expressway for the final run to the last time control of the day at the Hanging Temple. Tbh I’m not great on the M25 and once thought a plane was crashing because it was landing on the wrong side of the motorway. It wasn’t, I was driving west , when I was meant to be on the eastbound carriageway . Well, a similar thing happened today

Everyone knew there would be a point on the Hero tracker website where you could follow 76 cars going west and one east . That would be car 71. But surely not on bloody day one ! The trouble was I was so convinced everything was hunky dory it wasn’t until we had to stop at a police check and a very nice policeman asked me where we were going . Datong I said cheerily. No no no he kept insisting. I thought he was refusing to let us go west. He got so frustrated he took to Google translate (well not Google as they ban it here) to explain we were driving east . Luckily this involved a mere 25 km turn around…..at speed👀👀👀 . Every time I looked at the speedo it registered unmentionable numbers . There was no way I could complain. As this old 1965 car came roaring past the slick new Audi’s and BMW’s , the occupants were hanging out of windows videoing us

We screeched into the final time control and I legged it to the Marshall, narrowly recording the maximum permitted time.

So in conclusion the car was fantastic, the driver brilliant, the navigator crap. Obvs by supper time P was pouring over the days results. I’m not sure he’d ever had to go that far down a list to find himself. I had forgotten there would be results, and was mildly surprised we were that far up !!

Apart from feeling very sorry for P after all the hard work he has put in and his sheer talent for driving; I know he must be struggling with disappointment, but in the world that is Pam Watts, I stood looking up at the sheer wonder of the Hanging Temples in this place that fascinates me, with P, the one person I want to share this adventure with, and my other new best friend Tom (he off German charm and elegance) and I thought life was pretty perfect . I’m loving it

From the Navigator (might have to find a new moniker )