Team 96 Italian Job 2017

We survived – 10 days covering 2,649 miles – to our almighty relief. It may have been a faltering (and extremely stressful) start, but David’s beloved Jaguar XJS subsequently performed with grace, power, and extreme comfort. The magnificent Awards Dinner was attended by over 100 people, including many people who had completed the Rally in previous years, and some of the major corporate sponsors. The room was bedecked with photographs of all the cars, and a running video of the events of the week was playing. The Dinner was excellent and was accompanied by a range of wines donated by Tenuta Santome, the Venice Vinyard we had visited.  Organisers Freddie St George and his mother Giulia, made presentations and highlighted several funny and poignant moments relating to the week, and the formalities ended with a line of Chefs coming out from the Kitchen to receive our applause - only to suddenly and unexpectedly launch into a fabulous singing and dancing routine to get the party going - the more elderly of us retired shortly afterwards. 

Our own fundraising presently stands at £3,545, though we are not aware of the final figure for the Rally as donations are still coming in. WE WOULD LIKE TO SAY A BIG THANKYOU TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE SO GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED US WITH DONATIONS – it has so increased our own pleasure in taking part in the Rally.

Surprise, surprise - we won an Award – for the best comic photo from the Rally – Bob in the Stocks for having been caught drinking some alcohol at lunch – strictly prohibited (see pic on Day 4). I can be forgiven – on the first full day of the Rally we arrived at a Restaurant with a plentiful supply of wine bottles on all the tables, so I quickly poured a glass. Within seconds, a waiter pounced on all the tables to remove all the wine on the orders of Giulia – no alcohol at lunchtime - but I hung onto mine.

Driving back on Sunday we were close to the London to Brighton Vintage Car Rally, so we switched our route home to include the A23 and stopped to watch an amazing array of vintage cars on their way down to Brighton. If we’d had to travel at the same speed as those cars we would still be in Italy until way past Christmas !

Thankyou again – we have both had a really exhausting, but thoroughly enjoyable 10 days – now home to rest.