I’d like to say I woke with the first call of the alarm but, sad as it is, I was already awake at 5am on Sunday morning. Part of me wishes I wasn’t like this; that, having done this job for such a very long time, it would all now be so routine I’d not lose a moment’s sleep over it. Another part, however, fears that moment and hopes it never comes.
Because if you can’t get excited about driving a two-seat, 656bhp V8 Aston Martin across some of the best and – at this time on this day – most deserted roads in the land, there’s a very good chance you’re no longer in the right job. I know writers – people whose names you’d know – who care really very little for cars but just sort of fell into writing about them and when they write those ‘there I was’ stories actually couldn’t care less about what they were in, where they were or what they were doing. But I just don’t have the talent to fake it.
Enzo is in his bed and deigns to open just one eye as I turn on the light. But that eye is good enough to spot I’m in my running gear and in an instant he’s up and ready by the back door. He thinks he and I are going to go and climb a mountain but I’m afraid he’s only half right. I am indeed aiming to head up Pen-y-fan, the third highest mountain in Wales and the highest outside Snowdonia, but I have also to exercise thoroughly the new Vantage and while I enjoy a good working relationship with the Aston Martin press department, it is hard to see that not becoming degraded somewhat by me returning their car complete with the noisome odour of anti-bacterial wipes expertly blended with Labrador vomit. His legs will need to be stretched by someone else today.
