Returning from Cornwall 5 September 1999
	The nettles impart distinct and pleasant flavours to the cheese. Yarg Cheese information leaflet

(With interjections from Marcus in blue.)

Jill, Marcus, Jackie and I were driving back from our friends' wedding at Pendennis Castle in Falmouth, on the lookout for a silly tourist attraction to visit. We'd picked up a couple of leaflets from a small in-the-middle-of-nowhere café that sold us some Devonshire cream teas on the way down. The Netherton Yarg Cheese Dairy looked promising on many levels; not only were we curious to know what manner of beast a yarg was, but they wrap this cheese in (of all things) stinging nettles.

You can just picture the village committee - 'Jethro's made a new cheese, any suggestions for a name?' 'Oh, let's have a taste, it's quite, nice, of, it's, Yarrrrgggg!' 'Yarg it is then...'

However, the Dairy was shut on Sundays, so we had to settle for the Yelverton Paperweight Centre on the edge of Dartmoor which 'is reputed to be the largest private collection open to the public in Europe'. It even has a web site, and looked perfect for a quick giggle. An hour later, we'd spent over £50 and bought six paperweights between us, so I guess the joke was on us.

It really was a very efficient organisation - lure in cynical townies and shear their cash off. After we left they clapped their paws with glee. 'Soon Cousin Jed, soon we will bankroll the independent Cornish state!'

We'd just driven through a town which every road sign had referred to as M'Hampsted - (Homer Voice) Mmmmm Hampstead! - when my car suddenly started making a nasty clunking sound. The suspension started feeling a bit rough, too, so I stopped and checked that we hadn't picked up a puncture. As far as I could see, we hadn't. I drove on a bit further, and then stopped to check for any obvious problems under the bonnet. There weren't any.

Two miles down the road the front left wheel fell off.

This was a bit of a surprise to me, but I'd been doing a cautious 20mph and the car slowed to a halt with me still pretty much in control of it. It was probably brown trouser time for the chap who'd been tailgating me (and doubtless cursing the fact that I was doing 20mph in typical Sunday driver fashion) and who suddenly found my front wheel bouncing along the road to meet him.

He smiled when I retrieved it, in that dazed look you only get from people who have seen something that was momentarily scary and incredible, or everyone who lives in Devon.

I switched on the hazard lights and thanked my lucky stars that due to the fact that I have AA Roadside Relay it was now someone else's problem to get the four of us home. I fished out my AA card and my mobile, and discovered one of the features of being at the bottom of a valley in rural Devon - no Cellnet signal. I therefore marched off into the nearby village of Dunsford to find a phone box.

When I returned (AA recovery on its way, but would probably take over an hour because it was Sunday and we were stuck on a B road that they swore blind didn't exist) Marcus, Jackie and Jill had taken up station on the bend just down the road from the car, and were trying to warn the oncoming traffic about it. Unfortunately the Highway Code doesn't list a hand signal for 'There's a three-wheeled car just round the corner, and it's not a Robin Reliant', but they were improvising and holding up one palm in a 'Slow down/stop' fashion. Apparently in Devon this and signal means 'Gawp at me as though I've just landed from Mars and stop looking where you're driving', because that's what everyone did, so we kind of gave up on this idea after a while.

Not to mention:

'But Mummy, why is that lady not white?'

'Accident?' 'No thanks, just had one...'

After about half an hour, a motorcyclist raced up to the back of the car, looked at it, looked at the wheel, and then raced off back in the opposite direction. We imagined that he'd gone back to tell his pack 'Hey! There's a lame one here - we can pick it off from the herd,' but actually he hadn't. It was worse than that. Ten minutes later, after a suspiciously quiet period with no traffic, he returned leading a combine harvester. Just at this moment there was a diesel growl from the other direction and a double decker bus hove into view.

The bus and the combine harvester regarded each other warily, and sized up my car like two tyrannosaurs deciding who gets to eat the human. The combine harvester made the first move, squeezing alongside it on tyres that were taller than the car itself. It got past, but only because the motorcyclist leant heavily on the bonnet and leaned the car away from the centre of the road. About fifty vehicles followed the combine harvester, and then it was the turn of the bus to prove how relatively slim it was as it roared past at an insouciant 10mph with inches to spare.

At last the AA recovery vehicle turned up, in the shape of a tow truck from a garage in Newton Abbott towing a small white Fiat in which we were to drive home. This was a great plan, spoiled only slightly when the man driving the tow truck wrenched the front bumper off the Fiat while unloading it from the truck. Still, nothing a few cable ties wouldn't fix, and it was rather in keeping with the choke that was fixed in place by masking tape and the broken bonnet release lever that dangled worryingly close to the clutch which meant that every gear change I made I did in mortal fear of the bonnet flying up in my face. Personally, once the guy had jacked the car up and put the wheel back on it - using my jack because the one he'd brought didn't fit under the car, which was useful - I'd have felt safer driving my car back, bent front wing and all.

Thankfully, the paperweights were safe.

But when we went back just 100 years later the paperweight centre had vanished as if it was never there ... Doo doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo (he said in a poor Twilight Zone stylie).