For the past 10 years, the Beaulieu Autojumble has been an annual event in my life. Not that I had ever managed to get to it. Annual plans for a visit to this Motorhead's Nirvana were dashed each year by some unforeseen obstacle.
This year I started planning early, held my breath through the summer and crossed my fingers for good measure. Well, something worked - I got there.
Why is this annual September event special? The first thing to understand is that Beaulieu is the home of the Autojumble - the word, which appears in the latest Oxford English Dictionary, was coined there by the Motor Museum's former director, Michael Ware, to describe what the poster for the very first event called "a grand event for the buying, selling and swapping of spare parts, accessories and other desiderata for motor cars and motor cycles of all ages."
That was in 1967, just 15 years after Lord Montagu had founded the museum in the grounds of his ancestral Hampshire home, Palace House in the New Forest.
The first event had 75 stands and drew about 5,000 visitors. Two years later the number of stalls had passed 200 and in 1979 it became a two-day event.
This year the event has grown to no fewer than 2,000 stalls spread over 25 acres attracting some 30,000 visitors from all over the world.
We - son Robert and self - get an indication of the Autojumble's popularity in the difficulty finding accommodation within an hour and a half's drive of Beaulieu. Everybody else at our eventual B&B near Salisbury is also Beaulieu bound.
A party of six has travelled from Germany, an annual trip, and are actually exhibitors dealing in replacement parts for Aston Martins and Lagondas. Another group has travelled from Kilkenny, like us, making a first visit to the Autojumble.
Our German friends have mapped out a route which they believe would take them to Beaulieu by uncluttered back-roads. The Irish, never slow to spot a good idea, arrange to follow them.
We get to Beaulieu just as about half the motoring population of southern England arrives, a good hour before the gates open at 10 a.m.
No problem - there's just enough time for a quick tour of the Motor Museum. I've been several times, but it's Robert's first visit. It seems that everybody else has the same idea. Nevertheless, Robert is impressed - rightly so, for this is one of the world's great motoring collections.
Soon it's 10 a.m. and the gates open to the three large fields which make up the Autojumble site. My particular interest is in filling some of the gaps in my motoring library, but there are books to be found on stalls all over the 25-acre site.
We stumble across what turns out to be the best collection of book-sellers almost immediately. Prices are mostly high, but also negotiable.
My first purchase is a Daimler Dart sales brochure - the Dart, or more correctly the SP250, is a car I've always regarded as very under-rated. "It was the only sales brochure produced by Daimler throughout the history of this model," the vendor assures me with solemn authority.
Then we get the hang of this extraordinary event. It runs to the whole range of automobilia from books and paintings to seemingly every imaginable part of every car ever built!
Of course, there are complete cars - and motorcycles - for sale. They range from the beautifully restored cars on sale at the Beaulieu Auction to what can only be described as complete basket-cases. The optimism of some would-be restorers can be nothing less than galactic in scale.
Soon we grasp the logic of the layout of the stalls . . .
The "Green Field" is where the professionals are based, the art and literature merchants and the leading accessory dealers and specialist dealers such as instrument suppliers. This is were most book stalls are located.
The "Red Field" is a more general mix of stalls. It includes specialist dealers but also many private owners selling off surplus items. This is where you'd find such diverse items as pedal cars, petrol globes and enamel signs.
The "Yellow Field" is where you can really strike lucky. This field is occupied by "newcomers" waiting to be allocated stall space in one of the other two fields. Because these stall-holders are likely to be less experienced, this is where you can find the real bargains.
By the time we figure all this out (let's be honest, we didn't understand it fully until we read the programme from cover to cover on the ferry returning home), our legs are aching and our arms in danger of being stretched by the weight of the books we've bought.
We now appreciate why so many people were pulling small trolleys behind them this morning. Rather than face a trolley-less ordeal, we take the courtesy bus, laid on for weary Autojumblers and their purchases, back to the car parks.
Back at our B&B, our friends from Kilkenny turn up with their impulse purchase - an Austin 8. Beaulieu is like that - you never know what you might bring home. One certain thing - having experienced it once, we'll be back next year and we'll have a trolley.