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[experiences] Vintage goodness at Goodwood

Good-ness… see what I did there? Yep, ok, I was definitely not cut out to be a stand up comic.

I had another one of my trademark weekends, full to the brim with friends and exciting experiences. Life is definitely starting to be more about what I do than what I have, and these few days were enhanced even more by pretty cars and very little kittens!

Here’s Merlin, exploring my book bag when I arrived at Em’s house.

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Sunday morning, after a night with the kittens, and a 6.30am fight with victory rolls (patience, kirby grips, at least two people and a LOT of hairspray) I set off for Goodwood.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Revival, it’s a vintage event at Goodwood Motor Circuit, and visitors are encouraged/required to dress in period costume – in this case 40s, 50s or 60s. Rob and I chose a hybrid of late 40s/early 50s and though neither of us had a clue what the other was wearing until we met up at the gate, I think we managed to co-ordinate brilliantly!

Here’s me. Dressed more or less as I often do at weekends, only with the addition of proper hair and less ridiculous shoes. Huge thanks to Lou at Contrariety Rose who was utterly wonderful and got my dress to me just before she went on holiday – it will be forever appreciated!

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Here’s Rob doing an excellent impression of a vintage gentleman. Complete with pipe.

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Mobiles are strongly frowned upon within the enclosure, and everyone puts a massive effort into dressing up, so there was a real sense of stepping back in time – vintage heaven!

There was so much to see I actually took very few photographs, but was quite pleased with this shot of old bikes in the French quarter:

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And it chucked it down with rain as we walked the track, so by the time we returned to our cars (having nearly lost mine in the mud along the way) we resembled drowned rats. I’m pleased to announce that the victory rolls held!!

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Epic few weeks – preview

  I have been ridiculously busy for the last few weeks, and each of the events deserves a proper post. However, as I’ve just arrived home from CAE 2012 (camping with the car club in Yorkshire) and I have washing and other such glamorous things to do, I thought I’d do a bit of a sneak peek with some photos, and link to the posts when I write them over the next couple of weeks 🙂

Here goes:

The first weekend in July, I did a stall at the Maldon Motor Show with the fab Annastasia Midorigreen and her other half Dan – we sold handmade, vintage and Star Wars figures. It definitely gave me the bug and I came home all inspired. The classic cars that showed up (all 700 of them) were amazing too.

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Then on Wednesday I flew out to Jersey for my best friend’s wedding. I was one of four bridesmaids and it was a fraught lead up but absolutely gorgeous day, despite the pouring rain. Julia is now a Wilson and it’s still not quite sunk in!

 

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And this weekend I have been to Yorkshire camping with my car club. This is always a highlight of my year – you couldn’t hope to find a lovelier bunch of people, and I always look forward to the meets we have throughout the year. This one is the biggest by far, with usually around 40 cars. Much eating, drinking, talking and laughing goes on…

 

Friday morning: How many MR2s can you fit outside one house?! (black is Rob’s, blue is Russ’s, red is mine, silver is spare)DSC_0651 Anna and I when she arrived, catching up and looking cute:IMG_8882Laughing despite the rain with Ally and Luke:IMG_8970 Dan, Brad, Nige, Karine & Jim demonstrating that rain will not stop us having fun… IMG_8977  

More on all three later – now I’m off to find food and catch up on sleep!

Route 66, Tulsa and George Strait – one perfect day

Somehow an entire week has gone past since last weekend, and I’ve not had five seconds to sit down and write a post!

So we’d done six glorious days in Texas, and now it was onto the road trip part of the road trip… 🙂

Thursday 16th February 2012 – we left Texas for Oklahoma. This was the driving part I was most excited about as it involved leaving the interstate and driving Route 66. Well, part of it anyway! Here’s a random section of interstate with an advert for Ariat boots – this is one of the reasons I love this part of America!

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It didn’t take as long as I’d thought to get over the border and into Oklahoma City (where we were joining R66). This made me realise exactly how lucky the girl we met on the plane is (she lives six months of the year near the Oklahoma border, as a photographer. She lives the other six months of the year in the UK, as a teacher. Ok, I wouldn’t want to teach, but  what an awesome way to incorporate two countries you love into your life!)

Here’s the turning onto R66…

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And me and Daisy Duck driving it…

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We stopped at the Rock Cafe in Stroud, on Route 66, on Mum’s recommendation (from things she’d read – she’d not been on it before either). It was a gorgeous little 50s-style diner, and it turned out to have a wonderful story behind it. The owner, Dawn, bought it almost by accident and found happiness in a small town. Pixar then discovered her, and the Rock Cafe, and she is the inspiration for the character Sally Carrera in the Disney/Pixar film Cars (http://route66news.com/2006/06/09/a-route-66-guide-to-the-cars-movie/). Which is amazing. The cafe also burned down in May 2008 (Dawn’s chronicles of its rebuild here http://rockcafert66.wordpress.com/)

Here’s the cafe, outside and inside – someone considerately parked a Boxter outside it so it’s almost like Sally herself was there…

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Busy, busy, busy

I’m sure life has got more mad since I started blogging about it! I’m very aware I still need to sort out the header for this blog and switch my links and thinks across from the Blogger account they’re currently pointing to. I hear Blogger’s had some problems – I haven’t actually posted there in well over a month so am hoping I won’t have lost anything; massively sympathise with those who blog regularly and may have lost stuff though, it’s not good.

I spent a lot of time with other cars like this last weekend… (that’s me with Poppy, my car) drove (roof down in the dark, it was faaaaaabulous) up to Nottingham after work on Friday (my London colleagues definitely think I’m mental now if they didn’t before; the majority of them don’t have cars and they cannot understand why I’d do that!), and drove across to Wrexham for my car club’s Spring Ding Day on Saturday. Went in his car not mine, which was absolutely fine until we started lining up cars for photos, then I wished I’d brought Poppy with me (not least because for once she was actually cleanish!) But was great to be a passenger – you’d think I’d never seen a sports car before, let alone own one *blush*.

We defeated the rain and got there in one piece, had a gorgeous day chatting and drooling over each others’ cars and going for drives – and then instead of taking me for a drive, lovely Phil let me drive his S2000 which ticked off one of the things on my List… it’s the one on the right for those of you less car-addicted than me 🙂

Then we got out some string, and spent lots of time shouting instructions at each other. The result?

 

(Stole these photos from Lynne, I’ll get mine up in next couple of days but am stranded minus camera or card reader at Mum & Dad’s this weekend!)

Yeah… I love my car and the people in my club 😀 We’re all ridiculous about our cars, but it’s a great atmosphere, everyone’s friendly regardless of whether you’re a new owner or a veteran, and I’m definitely in the inner circle now – I get insulted with a smile! 🙂

This weekend I’m on my way to the Pitt-Rivers museum in Oxford to see the Wilfred Thesiger Africa exhibition, long journey there and back but I think it’ll be really good.

So I should probably head for bed – sweet dreams all!

PS I’ve discovered and become addicted to Pinterest – more on that later!