Getting Ready for Crocus

Crocus hasn't arrived in Cornwall yet but Mike has been busy building the support frames that she will be resting on while we do the restoration.

After building them he burned her name into them ...

and then painted them with a wood preservative and varnished her name ...

Smart or what?!

Looe 10th Vehicle Rally

Another Sunday and another beautifully sunny morning. Today we were off to Looe where we were joined by 16 other MX-5's for a day out. We set up our Stand and prepared for the public to come and admire our vehicles.

It is a fabulous setting at the Westwayland Caravan and Touring Park overlooking the sea and just after lunch it was time for the exhibitors to enter the parade ring. I managed to get a couple of photos of this Shire before it was our turn ...

Most of the 5's took part in the drive and while we were introduced to the public the children waved and the adults applauded. After lining up in the middle of the ring ...

we drove out to be handed our memento of the day by the President of Looe Lions, the organisation that was responsible for the event. It was now ice-cream time for some ...

and while Mum and Dad helped to dismantle the Stand, it was time for a certain little chap called Fred to have a snooze ...

Wheels of Wadebridge

It is the Car Show season and after the disaster of Powderham we were hoping for sunshine today. Hooray - blue skies and no hint of rain! We had a great turnout of 19 cars ...

which was far more than had registered for the Show but we weren't complaining! A fab day with good friends ...

and loads of people admiring our cars. What more could you ask for on a summer Sunday at a Car Show?

Well we'd all like a clean engine like this ...

Home Again

Well it's been a momentous few days!

We've taken the plunge and bought a boat which we've had to leave at least 400 miles away and with no definite date of when she'll be brought to Cornwall. Mad or what? We don't care! It is a dream come true for us and we can't wait to bring her home and start the restoration work on her.

The only thing left to do now was to let the Cornwall MX-5ers know that we'd have to give up the job of Area Coordinators as we want to spend as much time as possible working on Crocus when she arrives. We sent out an email to everyone informing them that we would be resigning our positions at the Cornwall AGM in September. Later on in the evening we had a couple of lovely emails from members thanking us for our work for the Club and understanding how we wanted to move on to a new project.

The start of a new era ...

On Our Way Home

We've done all we planned to do on our quick jaunt back to Norfolk and so it's time to be heading home once again.

We were awake early and so set off at 9am with the first stop being Tesco to fill with fuel - at least we had a voucher for 5p a litre off! We decided to retrace our route up to Norfolk which went very well until we got to the Ring Road around Oxford where we almost ground to a halt. It just proved to be sheer volume of traffic and not an accident as we'd thought but while sitting in the queue I got the camera out and snapped this shot of a huge drill that was being used for some major works ...

and then we went over the canal with a train passing by ...

We had booked one night at a farm at Lambourn, Berkshire and the field had lovely views over the countryside ...


but it was defitintely not a flat field and the chocks were needed to get us level. Thank goodness we could leave the outboard outside tonight as we were miles from anywhere and it was perfectly safe being propped up in the bike rack ...

Hamish watched me as I was on the PC ...

I can hear him saying "Mum, surely you can't need to go on that machine again tonight?"

Heading for Norfolk

We woke this morning to torrential rain just as the forecasters had predicted.

Mike had promised John that he would pop down to Epiphany and give him a lesson on splicing before we left for Norfolk. He was a very able student!

As the weather was so foul we decided to avoid motorways as much as possible although we did go on the M4 for a couple of junctions and also the M40 for just the one junction. I hate motorways in bad weather as people will not slow down despite terrible conditions.

This is us crossing the River Cam ...

We had a good trip and in fact it was 20 miles shorter than the last time when we took motorways all the way! We arrived and set up camp back at the Norwich Camping and Caravanning Club site where we had stayed just a month ago.

If you want to follow our travels you'll have to check our Broadland Holidays blog for a couple of days.

First Stop Sells Green

Life is so exciting! We're off to Norfolk again to meet up with the current owner of Crocus so that we can pay him and collect the sails, cushions and outboard motor!

First port of call is the Devizes Camping and Caravanning Club site which is located by the canal at Sells Green and who should be moored here but Epiphany! We spent a very enjoyable evening with John and Fiona in the The Three Magpies where it was boat talk all evening!

Soggy Sunday!

Whenever we woke during the night it seemed to be raining. At six o'clock we made the decision to call it a day and so around seven am we texted everyone who was due to arrive today and told them not to bother. There was no way we could get vehicles on to the Showground as the camping field was gradually becoming a mini Glastonbury. As we were packing up there was a message over the Tannoy to say that the Show had been cancelled due to the weather. This made us feel a bit better about giving up and heading home. Jo and Paul dismantled their tent ...

and we took a lot of their stuff for them as it was impossible to pack their 5 properly with all the soggy gear. Luckily we were parked at the far end of the field with a gate just downhill from us. It was a simple exercise to drive across the grass, out of the gate and on to an estate road. We'd already seen one motorhome get towed out so we were very pleased to be able to do it under our own steam. After negotiating Exeter we were back on the A30 and heading west.

It was an eventful weekend and one we'll never forget. We can't wait to get back to Norfolk and see our new acquisition - Crocus.

She needs a lot of TLC before she can go back in the water but it is just the challenge we'll enjoy and we've set ourselves a time limit. Hopefully she'll soon be on her way to Cornwall for restoration and then back to her home on the Broads where we can enjoy sailing her.

Super Saturday!

We woke this morning to find a dry day and the deer resting in the field just behind us ...

All looking good so far! Jo, Paul and Fred were happy in their tent ...

and then our mobile beeped to say we had a message. This was a very exciting moment for us! While in Norfolk on holiday we'd spotted a Broads River Cruiser called Crocus (on our Broadland Blog) that was for sale and we'd been in touch with her owner hoping to buy her. Mike now had to ring and see if our offer had been accepted - it wasn't! We upped it a little and unbelievably we are now the proud owners of our own yacht on the Norfolk Broads! This is something we've dreamed of since our first sailing holiday in 1971!! We were on Cloud 9! It is Super Saturday and we'll never forget this day!

However it was now time to start thinking about the Show so we loaded all the gear into Paul's car and set off to find the Stand. Everything was set up and we had five cars all in different colours which looked great ...

It wasn't long though before the rain began. Not too bad to begin with - just a short shower so we were able to shelter under the gazebo ...

Unfortunately one shower led to another and the wind decided to increase so in the end we had to take down the gazebo, which by now had a broken leg, and most people abandoned to their cars. In between the showers we went for a wander around the stalls where we found a new companion for Hamish - his name is Jack ...

and we looked at the vehicles on display. Here are a selection ...

By early afternoon we had all had enough of the rain which seemed to be set in for the rest of the day so we packed up and went back to the camping field for a brew. It was such a shame as so much effort goes into an event like this and people had travelled from all over to bring their classic vehicles to the Showground. At least we were cosy in our motorhome and enjoyed a glass or two with our meal!

Dry Start to the Weekend

Well it started off okay but steadily deteriorated!

We set off late morning for Powderham Castle near Exeter as it was the 35th Historic Vehicle Gathering organised by Crash Box and Classic Car Club ...

The MX-5 Club (Cornwall) had a Stand there and we had 19 cars booked to arrive over the weekend plus one from the SW Area who was due to join us on Saturday. We'd already decided to go up in the motorhome as there were so many things to take like gazebo, banner, pop-up, flag etc and boy did we thank our lucky stars!! We would normally have gone in the 5 with a tent. Anyway, it was all looking good when we arrived. We found a spot to set up camp making sure we had enough room for the two other tents who would be joining us and we pitched our stores tent and filled it with all the stuff for the Stand. We then waited for Jo and Paul to arrive as they were travelling up after work. It had already started to rain! After a cuppa they decided that they had to brave the weather and get their tent erected. Unfortunately I omitted to take any photos of them as they gradually got wetter and wetter - big mistake - although I think Jo was quite pleased that I couldn't embarrass her by showing her as a 'drowned rat'! We looked after Fred for them while they struggled in the wind and the rain ...

We all got together in the motorhome afterwards and had a meal before retiring quite early.