Magical Taxi Tour

A rude awakening today at 4 am, when the alarm clock hauled me from sleep. I was up that early in sympathy with my daughter, who was already showered and getting sorted for a 4.30 am taxi arriving to collect her. The cup of tea I made for her went down well!

It was an early start in a good cause. Along with some 100 others, she was off on the Magical Taxi Tour, as one of the drivers of traditional London cabs taking sick children and their parents to Disneyland Paris for the weekend. It is an annual event organised for the past 22 years by the Worshipful Company of Hackney Carriage Drivers and supported by my daughter's employer, black cab manufacturer The London Taxi Company.

After she set off, I grabbed another couple of hours' sleep before heading out to see the convoy on its way down through Kent on the M2. What a sight it was - some three miles long! - with police outriders and accompanied by big police trucks, French gendarmerie, medics in ambulances and other support vehicles.

Here they all are, hooting and waving as they passed under a motorway bridge near Faversham. It was easy to spot my daughter in the convoy, thanks to the Union Jack motif on the bonnet of 'her' cab.