The day starts well: with the news that both motions in the Grand Council have been adopted – the one on charging stations in full and the other on disabled parking spaces at least in part. That’s something to celebrate!

Today we are travelling to Taunton, stopping off at the Haynes Motor Museum on the way. The ‘Haynes Manuals’ are a firm favourite across the UK. They pick up where the owner’s manual leaves off, offering help and repair instructions for over 600 common car models and 200 motorbikes, which are also suitable for beginners. John Haynes has made a lot of money with his manuals and has built up a fantastic car collection.

And what a great collection of cars it is! With many gems from early automotive history, when the radiator was still a multi-coiled hose at the front end of the car. They even have a replica of the first motor car, the Benz Patent Motor Car Number 1 from 1886.

The focus of the rest of the collection is naturally on British manufacturers. Many of the brands have long since ceased to exist. “Failed to modernise” is written on one of the signs.

In addition to the British cars, there are also a few Ferraris and a fantastic Lamborghini Countach on display, the latter in the ‘red room’. Some of the cars are so close to each other here that I’m no longer comfortable 😉

There are also some gems in the motorsport room. The Ford RS200 is one of the 200 road cars that Ford needed as a prerequisite for the Group B races for production-based vehicles. Many people adored the Ford Sierra Cosworth with its large rear wing. And the Ford GT in the exciting colour combination is just a replica.

The room with American classic cars is also great. What is particularly striking here is how much bigger American cars were back then than European ones. Saving space has never been an issue in the USA.

Three models rightly stand on a pedestal as particularly beautiful, if not the most beautiful cars ever built: the Cord Beverly from 1934 with retractable headlights (white car) certainly looked incredibly futuristic at the time. The Düsenberg Model J (blue car) has a timeless elegance, and an Auburn 852 Speedster (red car) with a streamlined rear body.

I’m really amazed when I get to the UK: not only is there a sleek first-generation Lotus Esprit, but also the Jaguar XJ220 super sports car, of which only 275 were built between 1992 and 1994. It was the fastest production car at the time, with a top speed of 220 miles per hour (hence the number in the name).

On the way out, I hear Richard Hammond’s voice, follow it, and discover an almost hidden side room dedicated to Drivetribe. There’s even a timeline documenting the rise and fall of the social network built by the former Top Gear presenters. I was an active member myself and had my own ‘tribes’. In 2018, I even had the opportunity to visit the Drivetribe offices in Moorgate London. The fact that Oliver is still here is quite a surprise. Oliver is a 1963 Opel Kadett that Richard Hammond drove during the Top Gear Botswana special in 2007. He liked the car so much that he brought it back to the UK. Oliver has been a celebrity ever since! And of course LucY wants to be in the picture with Oliver.

We are delighted that Swiss cars are also on display: Two Mikrolino as part of the micro and bubble cars. With a top speed of 50 mph, we hope they didn’t drive here themselves.

It’s not too far from the car museum to the hotel in Taunton. Here we get a shiver down our spines when we see the totally worn-out notice at reception: ‘Internet currently unavailable’. We have déjà vu: we already had no internet reception here last November and the hotel is located in a dead zone, which means we can’t surf the net on our smartphones either. So the Premier Inn Taunton East really hasn’t managed to fix the internet reception for hotel guests for ten months. We put our things back in the car and book another hotel.

The evening is rather tedious – mainly because we try in vain to get the well-hidden charging station in the car park next to the new hotel to work after I finally find it. Another typical case: you have to download an app to be able to use it, but the app is not available at all in the Swiss App Store. Well, we’ll just park LucY with an almost empty battery. And we make it easy for dinner by simply ordering something from the hotel restaurant: a burger with fries and an Indian curry with naan bread.