Sue’s Scribbles June 2011

Hi Guys,

Six months into the year, and we have been out and about in the Moggy quite a bit and in mostly good weather too!

In these Scribbles I have squeezed in three Rally Reports.

The first was over to the Barnsley Branch Rally at Elsecar Heritage Museum. This is always a favourite venue because there is plenty to look at and buy, from the custom made wooden furniture and clocks to the two large indoor antiques fairs, they have now included an outdoor area by the side of the old train sidings as a collectables and bric a brac market.

We had seven members from our branch travelling in a convoy down the M62. We drove though some pretty torrential rain with fingers crossed that it would fare up a bit before we got into South Yorkshire and after a stop on the way for bacon butties we arrived at Elsecar to find that the sun was trying to peep through and that we had our own pitch kindly reserved for us by our hosts with our buddy Mike D already encamped! The wind was a bit gusty but the sun came out big style and we had a really very pleasant day just mooching around the cars and the attractions. Barnsley always have a good turn out of Minors and this year was no exception with 56, although Barrie did say that it was rather down on last year I don’t think you would have noticed! There were also 25 other classics, to which 8 superb examples of American cars contributed to. Tom Roy was also their for the inevitable must have buys. Ofcourse there is always the ‘Barnsley Boys’ spares, technical advice and bits of Auto Jumble to go at as well. Cam Shaw from Potteries Branch (the David Bailey of the Minor world) took oodles of photos, these are available to view on Potteries Branch website.

The Northern Regional Rally kindly hosted this year by the North East Branch Team was next on the agenda. Chris, Lottie, Charli and I opted to take the Navara and caravan instead of the Trailer Tent which was our original intention as we suddenly realised when trying to pack up to go that before when we’ve towed the TT we have had the Pick Up to stow stuff like the Porta Loo, water barrel, food etc in, you just can’t get all these essentials, two Jack Russells plus dog cage in a Moggy saloon! So it was decided that I follow Chris in Nikki. As usual when we go away we had to have words the night before so weren’t into much communication on the way up there even with two way radios the airwaves were silent until about 8 miles from our destination when I had to bite the bullet and inform Chris that his offside caravan tyre was suddenly belching out copious amounts of very black smoke!!!!  Luckily we were just at a garage pull in. The tyre was totally shredded! We had just come through miles of road works on the A1 so the conclusion was it was something picked up there that had caused the damage. At least we had a decent jack in the boot of the Moggy that would lift the caravan. In a very short space of time we were on our way again. Needless to say that broke the ‘cold war silence’ somewhat!! The campsite and the pub there were brilliant. Friday night 10 of us descended on them for a meal, I think some of the other diners wondered what on earth had hit them, especially when we managed to set the smoke alarms off above our table with one of the pubs speciality ‘sizzling platters’!! More campers arrived on Saturday morning so after all the hellos and a quick catch up with them Malcolm took us to a place that we could get a new caravan tyre from which was luckily open on a Saturday morning. Around midday we set of on a run round the country side that led us to Barnard Castle for afternoon tea and scones, then it was off to a Garden Centre for a browse amongst the greenery. Back at camp Mike D had arrived, so it was catch up time again before getting ready for the nights entertainment at the pub, this was provided by a Ukulele Band with a Pie & Pea Supper. After much hilarity, a bumper raffle in aid of charity and some really silly singing and dancing all of us 31 campers enjoyed a really great night!! Apparently according to Day Break TV, Ukulele Bands are the up and coming ‘new’ entertainment and I can truly see why!

Next day was the official Area 1 Rally Day at the Locomotion Museum, they were having a Harry Potter weekend complete with a chance to ride on the Hogwart’s Express, wizards wands and all the ‘Potter’ paraphernalia, I must admit though I am a HP freak so it was just fab! Basically the place on a whole is a smaller version of the Railway Museum at York but it has room for expansion. The weather unfortunately let us down a bit by being very blustery with intermittent short showers and we were on quite high ground but the turn out of cars was really excellent for this day and age, considering the cost of fuel the average mileage that people had travelled just for the day was over the 100 mark. There were 35 Minors and 5 alternative classics that included one lovely MO that deservedly claimed a Trophy. The Area 1 Branches represented were:

Lancashire

Yorvik

Bridlington & Wolds

Barnsley

North East

Lets not forget 1 car from Area 2

Chris and Yvonne from Tom Roy brought their trailer (this event ofcourse was almost on their door step)! but from what I could see trade was brisk as usual. There was a also a magnificent cake raffled off for charity made and decorated in true Morris Minor fashion by one of the committee members.

Sunday night saw us back in the Countryman Inn on our campsite, most had left but 6 of us stalwarts managed to create a little more mayhem once again for Janine and her team! If any of you are going up to the North East this pub in the village of Bolam just of the A68 has the best pub grub that we have come across in a long time, well worth a visit.

Chris, me and the little ones set of at just after 6am Monday morning – back to work!!!

Last weekend five of our Branch went to the West Yorkshire Rally at Nostell Priory a National Trust property. Not the easiest of places to find I must admit and I think several of us got a little lost before arriving. Luckily Sue and Dave Cook pulled in behind us when we were busy consulting our map, they had a sat nav so we knew on this attempt we would get there!  The scenery is beautiful, unfortunately the old stables buildings that houses the loos, Tea Rooms and shop is swathed in scaffolding, but it didn’t deter from the beauty of the place. It was £8 per person to go around the house but WY branch had negotiated a 2 for 1 if any of us wanted to go round. We needed a special pass to get to the loo and the tourist shop as they were both beyond the £8 entry fee gate – it was rather like going through ‘check point Charlie’ every time we needed to ‘go’, as the youngsters manning the gate didn’t seem to have any retention span and required us to show our pass each time we went through even though we were all wearing our MMOC regalia!

We counted 40 Moggys and 17 other classics including a really superb 1930’s Rolls Royce which was in absolute ‘mint’ condition. I had a really good look round all the Tourers and early 1950’s Split Screens looking to see what original bits I could recognise that need renewing on mine, it’s always nice to get ideas. There were bits of auto jumble but nothing old enough so not of any use to me. There was the usual Tombola which I must admit Chris and I did quite well on and ofcourse a raffle both were in aid of Help the Heros which is a cause that quite a few branches seem to have taken on. We left to come home around 4.45 as it is about a couple of hours drive for us.

It is our Fish & Chip Supper Run this months meeting – hopefully all of you on email will have received the reminders! Hope to see you in Cross Hill car park 6.30pm Monday.

 Sue, Lotti & Charli XX
 

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