Kick his balls. No! the ones on the lawn!

Last night we all gathered for cocktails on the hotel lawn, which reminded me of an old Jasper Carrot joke that involves an over-amourous dog, a policeman's leg and a tennis ball, but that's another story...

Anyway back to events in Beijing....

Today (Thursday) we prepared the car for scrutineering and I also spanner-checked every bolt and gave every jubilee clip another turn after yesterday's 'incident' at the warehouse collection point.  The car seems tight and ready.  My biggest concern is whether or not we have big enough fuel tanks.  We're running with 120 litres of fuel and this seems to be as close to the limit as you want to be with a thirsty 4.0 litre engine.   I guess that only time and the Gobi desert will tell.

The car park at the hotel has been competely taken over by the rally and was a hive of activity throughout the day.

Even Ces has now finally agreed that we're ready and her fiddling and fretting has stopped.

We sat through a 2 hour briefing this afternoon which was vitally important but confirmed that my jet-lag has now finally passed!   We covered breakdowns, borders, policemen and accidents.   I hope we meet and need none of the above.

The car is now fully loaded with water, food, GPS navigation systems, satellite telephone, iPod, clothes, tools and spares.   

All it needs now is us!

We're required to be at The Great Wall by 7.30am tomorrow ... ready for our 8.34am start.    Despite the gala dinner tonight, it will be early-to-bed and (I hope) another solid night's sleep.

I wonder if any of you would like to make a prediction ....about the content of any of tomorrow's uploaded pics?

To finish first, first you have to finish!  

(hmmm ... given the comment about a night's sleep and the contents of the photos, this expression should be amended to ... "to finish first, first you have to finish,, and to do that, you have to start!" ... Peter)
CD & Ces