Au Revoir. The Final Chapter.

Madamoiselle d'Armentieres (Parlez vous?)

Readers who have been with me for EVER may recall that I am (was) part owner of an ancient (1960s) Citroën 2CV from the 425 cc era, once a twinning gift from the French town of La Chapelle d'Armentieres, to the North Kent town of Birchington. This twinning happened in 1989 with Birchington giving a red phone-box to La Chapelle while La Chapelle gave 'us' a non-runner 2CV OK for photo-shoots but not much else.

David Austen rose (sorry, we can not recall the name)

This blog took up the story after our 2CV club (The Kentish Hoppers) got involved in a 4-man restoration (during 2007/8) of this car to get it road worthy so that it could be used in the 20th Anniversary (of the twinning) Carnival to be held at La Chapelle in 2009. This we did and we had a great weekend which included us being spoiled like celebrities and driving our car (and 2 other 2CVs) at the front of the carnival parade. Happy days. We four lads owned a quarter of the car each. It would have been worth about £3100.

Sometimes it is not mice and shrews the cats bring in. This is
a dragon fly (Brown Hawker).

With the big weekend over, 2 of the lads wanted out of the project, so Andy B and I bought out their quarters and now owned half the car each. I saw very little of the car but kept my 'end' up by paying half of any garaging, maintenance, MOTs, tax etc). When I moved to Ireland in 2011 I decided to pull out too, but as Andy did not have the spare cash at that stage, we decided I would slowly withdraw by not paying my share of the costs, and Andy would calculate how much this had eaten into my half. 6 years later I am down to about £600's worth of the car owned. In a blog post at the time, I called it the "Long Goodbye".

European lime.

This week, I got a text from Andy and one of the other original four (Ian C) asking if Ian might buy back in by reimbursing me for my cut. Although I will be sad to 'lose' my only remaining bit of 'real' 2CV (I have a gazillion models, toys and dead/used 'souvenir' parts) this seems like a sensible move and will help to keep Madamoiselle where all old 2CVs should really be - in use, on the road, getting regularly driven, not stashed in a dusty lock-up under a bed sheet. So, there you have it. I will receive a cheque shortly and will then join the ranks of 'former 2CV owners'. Good luck Ian and Andy. Cherish and enjoy that Lady as much as I did. Au revoir, Madamoiselle d'Armentieres. Bon chance. [wipes away a tear]

Storm Hector barges through. 

Meanwhile, back in Roscommon we were enjoying, as you know, that lovely warm spell and a bit unimpressed by the rattly but dry thunderstorms which were letting us know that things were about to change. Nobody was quite ready for the announcement by Met Éireann of a winter-style "named" storm charging up the Atlantic. This was, we found out, Storm Hector and he came with the usual Status-Orange weather warnings for winds gusting to 110 kph. Put all those lumps of rock back on the beehives, lads, and anything that might go airborne. Close the poly-tunnel. Batten down the hatches.

The 'Chinaman's Hat' part of a jackdaw pot. Not worth
putting that bit back up, then?

That evening I had to collect The Woman of the House from the train station, back from her stint of house-sitting for Steak Lady, so she was here to enjoy it all too. We spent that night as scared as normal listening to the wind raging round the house in the dark (I can never sleep properly through one of these) and worrying that trees would be blown down and chicken house roofs would go airborne leaving the poultry open to the weather.

A few branches blown down from that
gate-side larch was the worst damage.

In the event we got off lightly. The worst damage was a big branch blown down from that larch that suffered in the last blow (Storm Eleanor?). There were myriad smaller bits of tree strewn everywhere. The metal cone 'Chinaman's Hat' bit of our range-chimney jackdaw pot was sent flying but when I found it, it was so rusty and broken that it is not worth putting back. We'll just go with the 'cage' bit and the fire heat to deter the jackdaws. It is quite new, so I was a bit surprised by the appalling state of the thing. They are presumably not designed for in-use chimneys, which seems a bit lame.

Making the best of foxgloves broken off by
the storm winds

Oh, and we had no power. I had to phone the fault in (they were not 'yet' aware of it) and they managed to get us back on at about half past 2, just in time for Elizabeth getting home from an exam as part of her Horticulture training course. No problem there either - we have the gas hobs on which to boil saucepans of water for tea/coffee and on which to cook if power is still off at supper time.

Dublin Bay rose flowers knocked off by 'naughty' Hector.

The only other damage was the knocking down of some tall flowers (mainly fox gloves and aquilegia) and the knocking off of a lot of the open flowers on our lovely red, 'Dublin Bay' rose. That was as if Hector was just a naughty boy with a stick bashing all the flowers off out of spite. Never mind. The rose will flower again. The foxgloves may not.

The broken branches get tossed in to the sheep for browse. 

It is all over now, of course. The wind has dropped to a light breeze, the clouds have cleared (we did not get much rain off this one, either) and the sun has come out. Tomorrow promises a nice day so we can get out in the garden again and clear up all the debris.

Very little else going on here, so I will finish up at this point. Good luck to niece J-M who is currently sweating through her 'Leaving Cert' school exams (think 'A' levels for the Brits). Knock 'em dead J-M!

Eire Raiders

The Citroën 2CV Club of UK (2cvGB, for short) is organised into Local Groups rather than being run as one big club (although there is a Central Committee and an official National body) and it is at local group level that all the camps, rallies and events take place, with each local group advertising their events in the club mag so that people from any other local group can come and take part. When I lived in Kent I was main-man for the East Kent group, who are called the Kentish Hoppers. We ran camps in a member's Mum's farm at the village of Preston, near Canterbury and these were regularly mentioned in blog posts of old.

But it is the Bath local group, the Bath Tub Club who are the subject of this post. The group, run by John Mellor and Carol M who visited us here a while back organise driving tour holidays which in 2cvGB tend to be called 'Raids'. This one, being a tour of the west side of Ireland, got called Eire Raid or, less seriously Hair Aid. We offered to become a port of call on this Raid, as well as a port in a storm, possible free camp site, under cover car repair facility etc if it all went a bit pear shaped.

Well, they have all had a whale of a time and some lovely weather. They have toured all the scenic bits, had some lovely meals and sampled some excellent Guinness and John has kept us all up to date with his blog and reports on Facebook under the heading Hair Aid News. They decided to call in here this afternoon, so we went a bit mad yesterday mowing, tidying the garden and blitzing the house and Liz went into full-on Domestic Goddess mode baking scones, three kinds of cake, lemon biscuits, bacon cheese and chilli biscuits and those chocolate covered Rice Krispies things. We had an army of mugs lined up for teas and coffees, jam, butter and whipped cream for the scones, dogs were walked and banished to upstairs (briefly!) and we were ready.

There were 11 of them in the end - we knew John and Carol and we knew Sue Chalcraft from club AGMs (she was 'Keeper of the Archive') and Jan the Membership Sec but I am rubbish at names so the rest of you, if you read this, I'm sorry but names pass through my brain without really touching down, so I will have to learn them and get to know you better through Face Book. They were all lovely people and it was fantastic to have them here. They loved the place and the geese and goslings, chooks, mini-horses, rabbits, dogs (yes, we quickly let them out of their room once we'd explained about not letting them dash out of a door and get at the goslings) and cats. They descended upon the food like a plague of locusts and we chatted and talked, showed them the place and all the work we have done to renovate it.

All in all it was an excellent 'event'. I think this is their last night of 'Raid'ing so as we said our good byes, some of them were also saying their own good byes to each other as they went their separate ways back to ferries to the UK over tonight and tomorrow. That sad 'end of holidays' feeling we all know so well. Well guys, if you are ever by this way again, do look us up. We love doing this and Liz, particularly loves all the baking and Domestic Goddess-ery. There is something Irish about being hospitable and feeding guests, and Liz has definitely got this gene.

Brilliant.

One More Box Ticked

The screening of the new "Red Sails" barge film at the cinema in Faversham is a huge success attracting a full house (450) with an overflow of 200 more 'bums' for a second screening at 3pm. Faversham people definitely appreciate all things barge. Dad gets into a group of Volunteers who all arrive by coincidence in the lower seats at the left hand side. The group is later joined by a 'celeb' from the Society of Sailing Barge Research called Tricia Gurnett. The film is brilliant (again!) and Mike Maloney (Producer) receives a rousing round of applause. Dad and his group plus Tricia adjourn to the Cambria for a cup of tea below decks.

He then gets a phone call from 2CV Llew who is struggling to source mudguards for the trailer he is building for Dad, and asks Dad to drop in to Trident Trailers right round near our old house. They have one of the desired type and size but can get another brought over from their other shop in Maidstone.

Back at Diamond's, Radio 2 presenter Ken Bruce, is recommending "Kir Normande" as a cold cure. It's a 50/50 mix of Creme de Cassis and Calvados which Haggis would argue is a waste of Calva but Dad thinks is not too bad as a medicine, so Diamond and Dad partake of a few in the afternoon while putting the world to rights. 2CV Llew is doing the driving tonight to the 2CV club do, so he can get away with it.

The national 2CV club (2CVGB) is organised as a collection of local groups all meeting in pubs roughly monthly and covering the 2CV demand in their county or part county. Dad's local group. the Kentish Hoppers, meet in a pub called the Haywain in the village of Bramling just east of Canterbury. As the supply of road worthy 2CVs fades (the Government websites have the number down to about 2500 in UK now) these groups are also fading and merging; the Hoppers now are the result of a coalescence of several Kent groups and can still only put up about ten souls on a good day.

Last night they were meeting to eat the Haywain's pub-grub and to bid farewell to Dad, who's been the 'main contact' for the group for ten years or so. They don't do 'chairman' and 'committee' posts; it's not that kind of a meeting. It's usually just a gang of like-minded souls coming together for a beer and chat which is only sometimes about olde cars and 2CVs. Dad was worried that tonight the food would be the Haywain's Christmas menu, so was looking enviously at Mum and Diamond starting to prepare a genuine pasta carbonara. He needn't have worried. The group had swerved the Christmas menu in favour of ordering off the normal menus, so Dad had their delicious game suet-pudding with peas and mash followed by a choc sponge pudding with black cherry sauce and ice cream. Also a pint of Gadd's and a pint of Bombardier. Excellent. Another box ticked in the 'farewell to social groups' agenda. The last one for Dad. There remains only the Mum's work set and landlady Diamond herself.

Deefs

Hoppers Camp 2009

Hey! We've all been camping again, the 2009 edition of the 2CV camp organised by dad's club local group, Kentish Hoppers. We're in the old familiar farm in Preston, a village just East of Canterbury but in 2009 there are some major differences from "normal". First up, the weather.

Dad's camps are plagued by strong winds and heavy rain, so that we dogs are always damp and normally crawling into the damp tent accompanied by a towel down by increasingly damp dog-towels. We lie in a steaming heap with Dad and no-one can really get a good, comfy night's sleep.

This year, blue skies and hot hot dry days, windless to the point of being stormy-sultry, but the threatened storms miss us, except for a tiny shower on Saturday.

Next was that the camp was timed to co-incide with another big local event, the Preston Steam Traction Engine Rally, where lots of boys even more weird than Dad display their huge steam engines (far worse than 2CV's!). Boys never grow up - it's just their toys get bigger.

We finally get to ride in the Hoppers' project restoration car, "Mademoiselle", when Dad has to nip over to collect here from the lock up so that she can be displayed at the camp site, and does not want to leave us behind. The precious restored seat fabric is protected by a rug, and in we clamber. Excellent fun!.

More of this soon - I have lots of pics and lots more to tell. I must remember to tell you about Megs getting into trouble for stealing our new Hungarian friend's breakfast, but that's for later.

Also why I'm now shampoo'd to within an inch of my life.......

Good stuff - we're all tired out now though.

Deefski

New Hoppers Website

Our wagtails pics are a hit with the Cambria Trust boys, who sing their praises and ask could they show them on the Trust website and newsletter. Of course they can, especially if they then treat the nest with the appropriate respect and allow the babies to fledge before too many more visitors disturb them.

Dad finally finishes his web design course at the local Grammar School and, along with all the other "students" has a rather beginner-ish website up and running, plus the skills and knowledge to keep it going and improve it. Go look, if you like, on

http://www.kentishhoppers.org.uk

A lot of the stuff on it, you'll find fairly familiar. The "Hoppers" are Dad's 2CV cronies - the name of the local group of the National 2CV club, and the Cambria stuff you've seen before. None the less there's some rather nifty features - a scrolling collection of 30 pics of "Mademoiselle" being restored, via a link to our Flickr gallery, plus some video of 2CV racing via embedded html code. Plus pictures, google maps, stories and plenty more.