Like a child before Christmas

I started counting down the weeks to the British Grand Prix as soon as I ordered my tickets in January, for the last couple of weeks I have changed it to counting down days, and now that my tickets have arrived I started on hours (207 and a quarter until we leave at 9am Thursday, in case you’re interested – which I’m sure you’re not). Why am I so excited? It’s the first Grand Prix I have been to since 1999, when I did Silverstone and Spa with my Dad. I stopped going originally because I was deemed grown up enough to pay for myself by then, and then as the years passed I bought a house, had some children, that sort of thing, but now I’m back.
Although this will be my first F1 race in 11 years, it will be my eighteenth in total - I started going when I was six, and I never remember being this excited before. This is in part due to the fact that I am taking my son, Christian (7), to his first one, and also because we are going with a great bunch of people. We are camping in the grounds of Whittlebury Hall and anyone who is familiar with camping at Grands Prix will know that it is the only way to do it, the atmosphere is fantastic.
Christian, too, is beside himself with excitement, although this is mostly attributable to the fact that he is convinced he is going to meet Lewis Hamilton, my girlfriend, on the other hand, thinks it is crazy to spend all of this money to go and watch “sport” (it’s a good job she doesn’t know how much it’s really cost). In comparison to the prices from 20 years ago, I suppose it has marginally outstripped RPI (and the rest!!), but it’s worth it, we have got pit straight grandstand tickets, which were worth paying a little bit extra for so that Christian doesn’t spend two hours on the Sunday trying to battle his way through the crowds to catch a glimpse of the top of someone’s crash helmet, like I had to on my first trip to Silverstone.
I started getting really excited when the race finished at Valencia on Sunday, and I said to Christian that the next time a Formula One car turns a wheel it will do it right in front of us.
Regular updates to follow on the build up and then on the weekend itself, both here, and at twitter.com: @daimccann and @ifitsgot4wheels.