Sparks

This is my neighbour Rob, who races stock cars, seen here doing a welding job on his latest battered vehicle. He's off to Wimbledon tonight where about thirty cars will be banging away at each other until something gives. Apparently the real action was last night in Ipswich when there was some international bashing about.

Means nothing to me. I'm not a car person. My brother-in-law took me to watch it once about 40 years ago and all I can remember was that it was noisy. My sister sat in the pits reading Philip Larkin.

But Rob is one of those gems to have living in your street; I can't remember the number of times he has helped me out with flat tyres and domestic emergencies. He even decked his big belching mobile workshop out as a Prom Night transport for my daughter and three of her mates a few years ago; this big blue box came belching up in between the stretch limos and out they jumped, her in her £200 donna karen dress and her three male escorts in sharp suits. His moment of supreme heroism however came a couple of years ago when he heard noises in the street in the early hours of the morning and rushed out to find our recycling wheelie bin had been set on fire by some idiot with nothing better to do after a night on the beer. It was right next to our car and if the petrol tank had caught it would probably blown the front of our house off. I came out and found he had dragged it out into the middle of the street and was hosing it down until the fire brigade arrived.

That's what you call being a good neighbour .... Thanks Rob.