SPENT most of this weekend getting sunburnt, eating expensive burgers and watching small planes landing and taking off on a windswept airfield. You might think I've been on a Ryanair break to Benidorm but in fact my destination - 2009's Woodvale Rally - is cheaper and slightly more amusing.
The show, which takes place each August within the confines of RAF Woodvale, near Ainsdale, is something I've managed to gatecrash almost every year since the mid '90s but I've always been determined to get the bottom of what it actually is.
Is it a classic car gathering? A model aircraft show? A chance to eat fast food and immediately regurgitate it on one of the nearby fairground rides? Personally, I think it's a strange mish-mash of all three, but it's still a delightfully entertaining draw for car, bike and plane buffs from right across the region.
Naturally, my own classic was being typically uncooperative, getting so excited about going on show that it decided to shed its exhaust pipe. It missed the Saturday but - after lots of swearing, shouting, and sawing - it did eventually get there on the Sunday.
As as all classics break down all the time, I ended up having nightmarish visions of legions of people across the North West all perched underneath Austin Cambridges and Ford Anglias, wetting themselves because their cars are wetting themselves. It's almost enough to make me give up and buy a Nissan Micra.
Admittedly some of the cars which actually made it here - some of which are shown here - were quite nice, and there's always something stirring about seeing a Vulcan bomber fly past. Yet I still can't imagine pitching up a tent and spending two whole days there.
So the Woodvale Rally's still full of expensive food, cars that don't work, and every spare bit known to man (except the one thing you actually need). And I still love it.
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