And for a few days it was - until, while heading home the day before we were due to leave on a week's break in the 'S', the car decided it was bored with all this gearchanging malarkey and plumped for sticking in fourth gear. I managed another 20 miles or so - a real hoot - but eventually gave up and rang my old chums at Porsche Assist. The Boxster disappeared sulkily on the back of a truck. Again. A loan car arrived next day, but a black mood pervaded the Bailey household as we put back our plans by a few days.

A day later the car was ready. A broken retaining spring in the gear linkage had been the problem apparently. Having popped the top down for the drive home (you can sort of guess what's coming, can't you?) I stopped off at our local supermarket and attempted to put it up again... nothing. Not even a click. My call to Carrs was, let's say, brief and one-sided, centring around the fact that we were expecting to leave on an already delayed holiday that night in the car and what did they suggest we do? Frankly, even if the problem was 'fixed' in time I wasn't going to trust the hood for a week away. At this point general manager Ian Davies stepped in and offered his Boxster demonstrator to go away in, bringing down my blood pressure to merely high rather than potentially lethal levels.

When the technician arrived to collect the 'S' we both noticed that the handbrake light was flickering intermittently and, since the hood operation is linked to, and dependent on, the handbrake sensor, this looked like the probable culprit - as was confirmed on our return a week later.

So Carrs has undoubtedly blotted its copybook somewhat by failing to correctly diagnose the hood fault on two occasions. However, such obvious efforts to remedy things as swiftly as possible make it seem almost churlish to complain - which just goes to show the value of good customer relations - and then there's the Boxster's brilliance, because all this month's woes are virtually forgotten as I get ready for another blast across the moors. Think I might take a brolly though, just in case.