Events

The power cuts well and truly threw my plans for the Pride of Ownership (anyone else noticed that = P.O.O. or is it just my mind in the gutter?) well and truly out. I had fastidiously vacuumed the interior and boot of my 505 on Saturday with the intent of washing her down and doing the last little bits of interior trim that a little bit of damp cloth would have helped on Sunday. But it was not to be. Transpower has a fire; Epsom has no power; Peugeot shut up in the garage with an electric door. Yes there is the ability to open up our garage manually – but – you cannot re-secure the door so that nobody from the outside can open it up and come in. Best to leave the car inside me thinks and have the house secure. Fortunately, for the first time that I can recall, I had reason to leave Mandy’s car out overnight. Normally, if for whatever reason one of our cars can’t be kept in the garage, it’s not hers. Why you ask, wonder, or maybe don’t care? Well, because of the show and shine, in vacuuming the car I found a bit of loose interior trim on the right rear door of my 505. Solution – glue, door wide open and a broom leant hard against it wedged between door and a heavy box to make sure it stays stuck whilst glue is setting. Reality – room for one car only in the garage and it has to be mine as one cannot leave a car with the door open out in the elements. Therefore at the P.O.O. I turn up in Mandy,s Ford Falcon XR8 – rather glaringly not a Peugeot – but present all the same. To add to it, after all of the shenanigans of having to disengage our electric gates to leave the property as I found one of the mechanical arms wouldn’t disengage, followed by disassembling part of the setup, left little time to clean the XR8. A cursory clean only – and this was largely confined to cleaning a lot of birdshit (more poo) from it after I had parked it under one of our trees; previously it hadn’t had any of this. Consequently, I didn’t have time to vacuum the carpets or wipe the dirt – mostly from children’s shoes – from plastic surfaces on the doors in the back. To make things worse at the P.O.O. the judge was a tough one – it was me – and I marked it down hard but fair (it wasn’t the only car I might add, that had elements of the interior marked hard – two of the competitors’ cars had a lot of cat hair on the interior, and one had a lot of cat hair on the roof – but I didn’t get to mark the exterior so I don’t know if she got away with it or not – she instead had a clean roof lining which I did mark).

There were clear and decisive winners in three categories, being the only ones in the 03, 04 and 07 classes. If I had been able to get my car out of the garage I would have got the 05 trophy; instead it will remain unclaimed unless we have a show and shine at the upcoming interclub with Wellington – date to be confirmed. The current most likely rumour is the weekend after Waitangi weekend in the yet to be confirmed location of W(h)anganui – so keep your diaries free for a drive and weekend away (will probably involve having Friday off work as well for those of you who earn money).

What I enjoyed the most was the consistent factor that we had people from Whangarei turn up – what is it about that place? – and not the usual ones! You will have to read the results elsewhere in the magazine to find out whom. And also the recent subject of one of our covers turned up with a new (that is to say new to him) car, a very lovely black 607. The best way of putting it is, I was immediately envious and still am – despite my infatuation with 505s.

Also planning ahead, don’t forget we have our interclub NAVIGATION TRIAL with ‘that other club’. This year the details are;

Sunday November 16, meeting at Howick Beach car park, at 1.15pm, to start at 1.30pm.

I really hope to see you there, especially some of our out-of-towners from such locations as Hamilton, Whangarei and Paeroa. It would be great if you can make it.

As for rambling, the previous weekend and a couple of days out of the week, my family went to Ruapehu (staying in Turangi) for some skiing (the family – not me – I was support crew). I am very pleased to report the following – the pies at “Beaut Bakery” in Taupo (on Spa Road near a lot of the sports centres, not near the middle of town) are still of a high standard. This has been one of my favourite bakeries for some years now – but I don’t think I have written about it in the magazine before. Mandy and Jasmine both declared that they thought the mince and cheese pies (or was it steak and cheese?) were the best they had had. Joshua and Jessica agreed they were very good, I tried Chicken and Kumara instead which I thought was good, but not excellent. Like other bakeries I have written about – this bakery is a consistent place getter in the national pie awards – especially in the mince and cheese (or was it steak and cheese?) category.

Right – that’s it for now, don’t forget to turn up to the club night – next month too – November 25 – it’s my birthday – I might even bring some cake.

I think that is it,
Brent.