Knowing we were going to the Autosport Show I started saving my spoons all week, I wasn’t feeling great anyway so resting in bed and on the sofa for a few days was no hardship. It’s really tricky when you know that for a day out you know you need to rest for five days in advance, Andrew made plans for Friday night and I explained that I would need to be in bed by 10pm at the latest or Saturday would be a disaster. Of course the plans had to get postponed until another time, because it’s just not worth burning myself out when I have rested all week.
I headed to bed Friday night, everything was pretty much organised, so we were ready to leave bright and early. It was going to be a fab weekend, Saturday was to be spent at the show meeting up with all our F1 buddies, especially the group we had gone to Singapore with. Our intention was to go out on Saturday evening for a bite to eat and then into Birmingham for a few drinks with some other friends who had come up to the city for the weekend. The roads were clear and we made it to the NEC just before 10am, we met up with our friends and it was like we hadn’t been apart, soon we were bumping into loads of twitter friends. We really should wear badges with our twitter names on, because later in the day someone would say, you know that was “so and so” and I had no idea. People must have thought me so rude, but I really had no clue who was who!

We saw the Live Action Arena show which was fun, but a bit repetitive on previous years, if we go back next year, I will not bother going to see it! Once back in the main show we went off to see the F1 cars, Paul Oz’s stand with his amazing paintings and skull-ptures along with the collaborations of JLF Helmet Design and Badger Composite, sadly F1 Racing Gold wasn’t on the stand so I still didn’t get the chance to say Hi 😦
I had taken my wheelchair panels with the intention of getting David Coulthard’s signature, I had missed him in Singapore, and wanted to add him to the collection. As he went on stage he got whisked past me but he promised to come back. When they finished, the security guard kept saying to him, she’s here. he finally came back to me and said I’m so sorry they were calling me I had to go, I said thats absolutely fine, thank you for coming back! I explained about the panel and about Singapore and thanked him for signing it finally. He was lovely, Andrew even got his book signed by him.
We then went for a bit of a wander around the rest of the show, Andrew wanted to get some photos of the Performance Cars, we looked at various merchandise, although we had been buying bits and pieces all day. Andrew also signed up to Project Brabham and we were lucky enough to meet David Brabham. As the show was quietening down we needed to get a couple of photos done for some projects that are ongoing, we needed to head back to the F1 cars. With that done there was one stand left to head to and then we were finished, we needed to say goodbye to Paul Oz.

Our plans changed slightly as everyone was hungry, we decided to eat earlier and out of town, so Andrew suggested going to Peachy Keens, a worldwide all you can eat buffet. The only problem was we had such a good time and it took so long, we finally left there at gone 10pm. We all got into Birmingham at 10.30pm and checked into our hotel, it was too late to go out for a drink, so we let everyone know we wouldn’t be seeing them. We went to the hotel bar for a nightcap instead and reflected on what a great day it had been, albeit for me an exhausting one. An hour later we were tucked up in bed and Andrew was fast asleep, why is it no matter how exhausted I am, insomnia always plays up, I was really cold, despite having my hot water bottle, I was in pain, even though I had taken all my pain relief and it was a strange bed, so I was uncomfortable. I read for an hour until my eyes grew heavy and then I finally succumbed to sleep.