Buck Barn round and round to the Fisheries
So the Captain waited in vain for a call from young James to confirm his attendance…….in the absence of which I planned an extra 10 minutes in bed…..I have to admit that it felt bloody early when the alarm went off, and a tad dark too! Still a cup of Java sorted me out and off I trotted. Nothing fancy a blast around the M25/A3 to meet the rest of the gang.
the 1st surprise of the day (there were many) was the fact that Tony C had managed to drag his ass out of bed and was actually at the garage 1st…..which is a first in itself! One by one the others rocked up and it took all of a minute for the banter to flow. A further coffee (cheers Kev) and a ciggie or two saw the dark change to light (can’t call it sunrise as that was nowhere to be seen)…..
Off we set, line astern – a quick drag from the 1st traffic lights up to the speed limit, whereby a Z4 passed us, I guess hairdressers have Sundays off too then.
Now without blowing my own trumpet I have to say that I’m getting to know some top roads for our little jaunts and today was no exception. Tony, Kenton and I managed to overtake a ‘boot fairer’ which created a bit of a gap between us and the rest…….which stayed like that for ….well about the whole run.
The three of us made a slight error by missing a turning off the A272, guess we were just in ‘the groove’ for the sweeping bends so a quick turnaround (giving Tony B the chance to show off his 180 degree manoeuvres) and we were back on track. Except that a few miles down the road in Petworth my sat nav played some tricks – admittedly after I forgot to turn right and headed into the slip road for a car park. Doh!
The other 2 reversed leaving me at the back of our ‘Tasty Trio’ – but for the fact that 2 other tin tops wedged themselves between us….I got to the 1st roundabout and at this time the sat nav really did play up. Telling me to turn around, so I duly did as I couldn’t remember where the hell I’d taken us on the route!!!!
With a few muttered swear words and a few waypoints deleted I was on the move, playing catch up. Villages came and went and still no sign of the Deadly Duo….until I happened upon them heading the other way….WHAT? yes heading the other way! MMM strange. So I turned around and set off in pursuit….somehow they’d picked up Kev, handy as he has no sat nav at all…..we stopped for a quick ciggie/chat and they swore blind that the sat nav had told them to turn around…Tony and I scratched our heads ( well I did mine metaphorically, but Tony did his for real as I think he has some little creatures living in his thinning locks ). We were puzzled as we were both sure that the route hadn’t had any gremlins when I made it and when Tony checked it over….strange indeed. So the 4 of us cracked on, Kenton showing us the way now as we enjoyed some superb stretches of tarmac….until he got a bit too far ahead and kindly decided to pull over and wait. Handy, as a few minutes before I remembered that my accelerator cable was held together with chewing gum, saliva and a prayer after last week’s temp bodge to get me home after it had snapped. The last words that Richard had uttered after effecting the repair was ‘ don’t push it too hard’ —- oops, well that’s what I’d been doing for the previous 60 miles. So the chaps kindly let me lead again in case it did break again …..and we set off to click off the remaining 20 miles or so.
By then I thought it should be plain sailing, but Kenton’s sat nav decided to take him the long way (not the right way) to the Cafe, so yet again we had the slight comedy of cars arriving from different directions. No matter, we 4 were there….but what of the others? As Kenton, Tony and I wandered to the Cafe entrance we realised that Kev was missing – a clever feat as he’d been directly behind me turning into the driveway…..mmmmm well we pondered for exactly 2 minutes as to his whereabouts and fate and then moved onto far more interesting topics. Suddenly he appeared coffee in hand….’ where the hell did you get to ‘ someone enquired considerately’ ……turns out he’d beached his car on one of the speed humps down the driveway. (later it turned out that ‘beached’ was no exaggeration as it was firmly stuck and needed some manpower to lift it off). Bryan rocked up next, about 15 minutes (or 1 coffee) later…..and the others? well Tony C, Nick, and David arrived a little after that bearing the news that Graham had suffered a technical issue (well his car not him)….they also reported that he was fine, didn’t need our help and certainly didn’t need reminding that he was going to miss out on a super brekkie…..so what could we do….well send him an MMS with a pic of a full English of course.
Brekkie as always there was tops, and the banter equally so. I know that when we have these runs we have the cars as a hobby in common, but it is so pleasing to be able to sit down and have a bit of fun? mickey taking and general banter with like minded folks. As I’ve said before, it’s got to the point now where having covered a few miles in the old Gal I find the banter of these runs as entertaining as the roads – and that’s saying something as I really do like the driving aspect !!!!!!
As has been said many times, if your car is off the road, or you can’t get your ass out of bed in time for one of these early runs – do pop along to brekkie and join in. Oh and for all those doubters who were watching the weather…..grow a pair, the forecasts are often wrong in our favour, as proved today.