Reminiscing
Wow, hard to believe that a year ago we were doing our first club run from St Catherine to the Watersplash, dressed up in our Christmas finery and cars glittered up to the headlamps….
Last year, Gary gave us girls a treat when managed to split his Santa’s trousers 😜 but no such luck this year as he was dressed a little more conservatively.
The Costumes
Like last year, we were lucky to have 3 Santas behind the wheels of our classic mean machines, (Gary, Eddie & Phil) but the best look alike had to go to Phil again this year (well he had brought the grand children with him as props, and sweets ….). There were a few gorgeous Christmas jumpers (Jo, Helen, Annie & Peter) and a very well wrapped up Mrs Santa (me) who came without Titinne (who cried out sick and was in the workshop)
The ride
As my Titinne is temporarily off the road, Eddie kindly picked me up in Noddy (my first trip in a Mehari), it was 1 degree celsius that morning, so I made sure I was well wrapped up, fleece line tights with stripy red & white socks over them, my red skirt, red jumper, overcoat, red beret (I’m French after all and I couldn’t find the Christmas hat) and snood over the top… Oh and the necktube/face cover I wear on the motorbike and cosy gloves. I was not taking any chances.
Eddie kindly put the heating on….. really? there is a heater in Noddy? Or was he just taking the Micky? I didn’t feel any heat at all as the wind was buffeting us from the sides (Noddy as a roof, and that’s it). We made good time from St Brelade to the meeting point at St Catherine, by this stage, I rushed into the cafe and ordered hot chocolates for both of us trying to bring circulation back in my fingers… We must have looked like frozen Mr & Mrs Santa when we walked in as people stared at us for a while.
Soon the other nutters, I mean, the hard core club members out in all weather and up for dressing up, arrived and the banter started. It was soon time for us to regain our little ice box on wheel and form the tail end of the convoy. Phil took the lead in it’s beautifully decorated white 2cv, followed by Celeste, Cassis and Scarlet with Noddy bringing the rear as it had a little cough and insisted in dying off instead of staying in idle mode at stops… The route was very scenic, not too many hill starts, but lovely narrow lanes with walkers and horse riders waving at our little Christmas convoy. Until we came to a good 8 minutes stop, our leader had come head to head with a BIG Mercedes on one of the very narrow lane, eventually, the posh car relented and reversed a bit, came forward a bit, reversed a bit…. couldn’t make its mind up, it was like the cars were dancing with each other…. Eventually all of us squeezed by the big car without problem, however both driver and passenger did not look very happy, was that because I had my hand sticking out of the side holding the camera and taking pictures?
As we were going past the riffle range at Crabbe, a few guns shots were heard, which according to Gary, made Annie jump out of her skin and nearly falling out of Cassis…. Lucky for her she had her seat belt on 😳. Not sure if this scared Noddy too or if he wanted to make some noise but he started backfiring down the hill and then decided to cut out leaving us free wheeling all the way down (saving on petrol I guess).
Finally after an hour’s drive, we had reached our destination, the Watersplash, Eddie and I left everyone in the car park as we raced each other to the inside of the bar to see who could get to the heat first !!!! For some reason, he got served last, so whilst I was waiting for my hot chocolate to arrive, I was borrowing Mark’s coffee cup to get feeling back in my little fingers…. Boy it was a cold ride, I could have picked a sunny day to have my first Mehari ride, but I like to give myself a few challenges… A very enjoyable ride if a little cold for Mr & Mrs Santa, but at least, our car didn’t have any condensation on the windows….
Our Chairman, Peter joined us at the Watersplash, as well as Stuart and Penny who were unable to make the start. Always nice to catch up with our 2cv friends over a coffee for a few jokes and 2cv stories.
Next outing, New Years Day………