Goodwood Festival of Speed 2026: PJs, Porsches and a Very Early Start

In time, I will fill in little details about “the missing years”. But if I wait to do that, I won’t keep up with current events, and that would be a shame.

One such event was the 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed (FOS from here on ;) ), this past weekend. We decided last year that we would treat ourselves to a day at the FOS. Neither of us had ever been, but I’m a huge F1 fan and have watched motorsport for many years.

In fact, I have the vaguest memory of Mum and Dad taking me to Brands Hatch as a toddler. Who knows if that’s a real memory, although I think it probably is.

Anyway. It is a real treat of a day out — it’s definitely not a budget outing!

Because it was a bit special, and MrNoo knew people who had been before, the suggestion was that we get Grandstand tickets as they would make the day much more enjoyable. So, for the two of us, the investment was not a lot shy of £500. Given that we were also likely to need to eat on the day, that was kind of our final budget figure.

I spent the preceding week in a bit of wardrobe turmoil, as we are in the middle of a heatwave (anyone noticed that in the UK?) and I don’t suffer the heat well. But the tickets were bought and had cost enough to be noticeable, so I knew I needed to do the best I could to enjoy the day.

A ransack of my wardrobe yielded a pair of Uniqlo linen-viscose trousers and an old olive-green Ghost cami, which I’ve had for decades and is still one of my favourite tops. So that was a starting point.

I had anticipated wearing a white double-gauze shirt, but when I tried it on I realised it was actually a bit too warm. I knew I would need something over my shoulders and arms to stop me getting sunburnt, so I mooched over to Sainsbury’s to see if they had anything better in their Tu clothing section. I was happy to be flexible with the whole outfit, knowing I had a starting point if needed.

Nothing much doing in there, to be honest, until I stumbled across the sale section and saw a pair of pure cotton PJs. It seemed ridiculous, but the more I looked, the more the top appeared to be exactly the overshirt I was looking for: not too long, a beautiful neutral linen shade with a slightly darker vertical stripe.

They were 70% off, so I nabbed them. If MrNoo just laughed at my idea of going to Goodwood House in a pair of PJs, I would at least own some new PJs ;)

Anyway, to cut a longer-than-that story short, the jacket got the thumbs up. I ordered five sunhats from Amazon in the hope that between us we would find two that fitted and were comfortable. (We did!) And that was the wardrobe dilemma sorted.

I had spent some time Googling the FOS — which now comes with significant AI input — and the overriding suggestion was that we try to get there for 6.30–7am, when the car parks and gates opened.

I’m not naturally a morning person, although this is a significantly easier option in the middle of summer and a heatwave. So, alarms set for 5.30am, and we were on the road well before six.

What a good move that was! No traffic, barely any queue to get into the car park, and we were parked pretty close to the entrance, which was a bonus later.

Straight in through the gate, and the toilets were still pristine ;). Happy days.

Our entrance was close to the F1 pit lane and cars, so our first coffee was spent wandering up and down, enjoying the sparkling cars and being able to get close enough to appreciate their size.

They are really very small!

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The photos are quite tightly cropped because I had to avoid taking pictures of people hoovering the carpets. Everything looking its best.

From there, we crossed the Hill Climb track and spent an hour or so looking around the manufacturers’ cars. It was actually really nice to see all the different makes together — what is available now and what has come before.

I chose my next car ;)

Isn’t she a beaut? She has a matching interior.

Adds a quiet “in my dreams!”

We watched the first wave of climbs from a grandstand near the start. It was definitely the right move to have invested in the Grandstand tickets. It was shaded, and being just a little above the crowd meant you could feel the breeze better.

The rest of the day was basically spent wandering from grandstand to grandstand, looking at cars, hiding from the sun and enjoying watching grown men get very excited by the sight of heroes and wheel spins. 

I had two favourite moments (well I had many, i loved the day, but two that i can still see in my minds eye). One was Damon Hill driving his 1996 Williams up the hill 30 years after winning the championship in it. (slightly missed that on the photo as I was looking at the car and not the camera) . And the other was that if you parked your Porsche in the Porsche car park, they parked you by colour, which looked absolutely incredible (although by the afternoon these beautiful cars were covered in dust which would be a bit heartbreaking for the owners)

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(a very small selection!)

We left at around 1.30pm. We’d seen enough, and it was beginning to get uncomfortably hot. Always best to leave wanting more.

We stopped at a pub we know on the way home — The Cricketers in Duncton — and settled under the trees with a good late lunch, chatting about the day.

I don’t think it’s something we would do every year. It was amazing, and I loved it. When we got home, it was still on TV — the full day was being televised by Sky F1 (yay) — and we realised there was enough that we hadn’t seen to warrant a return, perhaps in a couple of years.

There’s no denying it’s an expensive day, and we were so lucky with the weather. It was very hot, but there was enough breeze to stop it becoming stifling — at least while we were there. It might have become uncomfortable later.

Getting there early was absolutely the right call. Leaving when we did was right on the day too, although if it had been cooler we might have stayed longer.

We said afterwards that it would have been good to find a tree, have a little nap underneath it and then start again!

But for our first visit, it was pretty awesome.

Tips for the FOS: 

• Wear long trousers and sleeves, both for sun and dust. Linen was a good shout in a heatwave
•  And a hat!  Definitely wear a hat!
• Get there as early as you can, gates open at 6:30 so before 7 is ideal.
• Leave just before you have had enough as the walk back to the car just tips it over a bit
• Take water bottles
• If you have a grandstand ticket try a few out, they all offer something different.

’Til soon ❤️

I can't begin to fill in the gaps

So as you may well have noticed, before my little Crete "journal" there was a not insignificant gap of about 8 years! (It actually really doesn't feel that long, but that's life as we know it) 

 Can I fill in all that time with you?

 Not really. But I can begin to tell you about a few journeys that seem to have happened almost without me knowing.  

It's quite strange to realise that it is only 4 posts back that i shared my poem to Mum that i had written for her funeral.  That makes it feel more recent than it is.  It will be 10 years this November.  But although she no longer inhabits this same time and space continuum that I do, it often feels like she has had a hand in things that have happened in the intervening years.

For example:  Only 6 months after i returned to my little cottage in Guildford, my lovely neighbour passed away.  I was quite devastated as I had been away in the last years of her life and although she had plenty of people to help, we had often gone to do the grocery shopping together and such like.  

The knock on of that, was that someone wanted to buy her house and really wanted mine as well, to be able to rent them out together.  As much as I had always loved that house, it was on a particularly noisy junction, and returning from the Sussex countryside after living with Mum and Dad for those 2 years, it had become apparent that I had lost a great deal of patience for noise and cars and traffic jams outside my front door.  So, in some ways the timing was good.  But it was still soon, and i was still bruised and tired and Dad was still in the care home in Guildford so i knew i didn't want to be moving away anywhere.  

One conversation led to another which led to another, and to cut out all the middle bit, I ended up buying my sister's bungalow as they were ready to find a different family home as the boys headed towards their secondary school years.  

And the point? Well the point was that despite the neighbours death being in March, and probate and all that had to be sorted, and negotiations and conversations....... our completion date for me to move to sis's bungalow and she to move on up the road (just a mile, we can still send smoke signals)........ our completion date was 2 days before the first anniversary of Mum's death in November.  It kept us busy enough, it gave Dad a focus and some fun in planning our DIY projects, but we were in and done by the day itself, to be calm but distracted just enough.  It took the sting out of that first year.  And in turn made the date a happy time, new beginnings. New Challenges (plenty of those to come!) 

I thought at the time I was buying a short term home, somewhere Mum knew and had been to in the years sis lived here, which felt nice for me. I wasn't ready to be somewhere she didn't know.  But it turned out not to be just moving house; it turned into a whole new chapter....... well several if we are honest ;)

'Til soon ❤️