:: Diary - November 2014 ::

:: Sunday, November 2, 2014 ::

It’s the first Sunday of the month. It’s raining. It must be time for the TVR Car Club meeting then!

Normal routine - shift some cars around the driveway so that I can get the TVR out of the garage, set off for Dave’s, stop for money, stop for fuel, stop for more money, yak yak yak for a bit while Jim has a ciggy, then we set off in loose formation.

Now, our wee convoy drives are normally “spirited” but not silly - not the out-and-out “hoons” that some car clubs go in for. No, we make progress but safely - I can’t recall us ever having an “incident” on any of our runs. In fact, we’re so careful that once we are over the Forth Road Bridge, we realise that we are approaching a deceptively tricky dead-straight half-mile of road that has been the downfall of better men than us, so we take a 5-mile detour through three wee villages just to avoid it. That’s how cautious we are.

I’m also cautious because my gear knob has come off, and I spend every brief stop trying to tighten it, but I haven’t got the right-sized allen key.

So we all arrive safely at the meeting, where “Spanners” Jim produces a set of allen keys, so the knob is happy (now that his gear lever is fixed). We find that everybody else is already there, so again we end up at our own wee side table, where the chat follows the usual wide range of diverse topics.

There’s a man there with a small chopper (well possibly more than just him, but who’s to know?) and he flies it up to take a nice aerial photo of the venue. I downloaded this from the Central Scotland TVR Group’s Facebook page (who knew that existed either?)

The rain stays off, so we have another roof-off drive home, with Jim in the lead! He’s getting confident!

:: Sunday, November 9, 2014 ::

The Nessies (North East Scotland) TVR Group are meeting today at Foinavon, just north of Forfar, and Dave and I have decided to have a wee run up. Jim was supposed to be going as well, but decided that family matters had priority. Well, he didn’t DECIDE that, he was just too scared to ask for 2 weekend passes in a row.

So Dave and I set off, and have a great wee run up through Perth, Blairgowrie and Kirriemuir to the venue, where the food is impressive, the company is good, and the waitress has a voice so high that only dogs can hear her.

What’s this? The Regional Organiser makes announcements about upcoming events! This is remarkable for 2 reasons: 1. there are upcoming events; and 2. everybody gets told about them!

There’s a young man in a new Ferrari, which apparently sits alongside his Aston Martin and various other stuff. It’s very nice, but I have to say that Ferraris just don’t float my boat, for some reason.

There’s a Cerbera in a different shade of purple from mine… sometimes I miss my Cerb, until I look in my wallet and find there’s still money in there.

There’s a man who now owns a Chimaera which used to belong to somebody just up the road (who stopped to speak to me when I took the TVR to Sainsbury’s last week - forgot to mention that!). This guy has also just bought an S-series from a serial S-owner down south, and picks it up next week. When we leave, everybody pisses off, except him - his immobiliser isn’t working so he’s stuck. We try jump-starts in case it’s the battery, and even replace the battery in his “blippy-fob” but nope, it’s knacked - so he calls the AA and we head for home. I sometimes think that alarms, immobilisers and locking wheel nuts are more of a pain in the arse for owners, than a deterrent to would-be thieves.

So we cross the Forth Bridge just at sunset, so we can still see where we are going. Once again (it happens nearly every feckin’ time) some twat in a BMW comes flying up the outside lane and then chops up the slip road right in front of you — this one didn’t even get on to the slip lane - straight across the painted chevrons. What’s the matter with these people?

2 junctions up the motorway, I find that my intended slip road is shut. No signs, no warning, until you get there. This time, it’s an Audi - up the outside lane, chop across and almost straight into a line of weighted cones. Unfortunately, he didn’t hit any of them, so it must have still been safe, eh?

A short detour to the next slip road, to find Audi-man fannying around because he’s now lost. He has the nerve to stop in front and jump out and ask for directions. I calmly send him completely the wrong way, hopefully on to the motorway, back 2 junctions past the junction that’s shut, and off he goes, happy as larry. Get it, as they say, right up ye.

:: Sunday, November 30, 2014 ::

I’ve been excessively lazy for the last 3 weeks (as far as cars go) so not a lot to report.

Had a wee trip to the NEC Classic car show a couple of weeks ago, and managed to resist buying bags of useless tat. I did however see a role of edging trim, which looked like the original stuff that goes around the edges of the inner wings, so I bought 10 metres of that.

The car’s looking sorry for itself - it’s manky from the last time I used it, both of the door speaker trims have fallen off, and the steering wheel seems to be determined to grow mould every time it gets left for any length of time.

So first, I give the car a clean with detail spray - it comes up nice. So do the wheels, although they could do with a proper polish as well. Not today though!

The speaker trims just clip into place - a bit more positively than they were.

Then I get the edge trim out, and start to fit it around the edge of the inner wheel arch. It’s fiddly, but it goes on with the aid of a pair of snips thumping it (the snips are also useful for trimming it to length, which is handy). No more scraping the skin off my arms when reaching past the trims to do other stuff!

Then I use a mould spray then a leather cleaner on the steering wheel, so with any luck that will keep it fungus-free.

So with that done, the car’s looking a bit more presentable, although I can still see an endless list of jobs I would like to do…