SPEND £ 500

A family on the other side of our road a few doors along from us decided to move, and a young couple moved in. Time went by and we noticed that whenever we drove past them in our Camel Trophy Range Rover they were having a good look at us. Then one day they had a puncture and I went over to help; we had a chat and that's when I got to know Darren and Karen Hubbard. Karen told me that she loved our old car.

Then one day they announced that they wanted to get into Land Rovering. I gave them some off-road DVDS to take a look at, and soon afterwards they were back, asking if I would help them find a suitable Land Rover. Of course I would!

They were initially keen on a Defender, but as Darren is a big guy, I suggested a Discovery might suit them better because of the extra legroom. It wasn't long before they came to tell me that a friend had a Discovery 2 Td5 for sale – and would I go and see it. The deal was done and they brought it home.

Darren took it to my friend Danny at his garage, who gave it a good service and wrote a report on it to point out a few jobs that needed seeing to.

Darren and Karen both loved their Disco. Darren said it was so different driving it compared to their little cars, as now they were sitting high. A few weeks later I took them both to an off-road site and Darren loved it, although Karen was a bit unsure to start with. That was followed by a trip to Wiltshire, where we had a weekend driving some of the brilliant byways there, and by now they are both keen as mustard– and are constantly asking me: "When are we going off-roading again, Charlie?"

Their Discovery was good and straight on the outside and was finished in a cool army drab, which I like. It needs some work underneath and Darren has that in hand to get it done soon, and it already had a good set of 235/70/16 B F Goodrich Mud Terrain tyres.

So we could keep Darren and Karen in the loop whilst we were off-roading, I installed one of Jim’s excellent CB radios from his 4X4cb.com Communication 11 range, and earlier today, with the help of our mate Simon Stevenson, we fitted a secondhand World of Bumpers winch bumper that Darren bought from one of our offroad pals. A nice piece of kit it is too, with the built -in LED lights that we also wired in.

Darren and Karen have also invested in some recovery gear, and so far have spent exactly £502 to enhance the off-road capability of their Discovery 2.

Their plans for the future include some chassis welding, treat the underneath with Waxoyl, save up for a decent winch – and then do a lot more off-roading, of course!