Spring Sticking? Ring Recovery!

Sometimes we just don’t seem to get the timing right, we waved goodbye to Frankie’s Panda on Sunday and on Monday night the Matiz died. Again. Ann-Marie spent a rather chilly couple of hours in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere waiting to be recovered. How’s this for a small world; the very, very nice man who picked her up used to go racing with the guy we bought our house off and once sold a 2CV to Dave!

Anyway, that left us with just one working car so Dave is using the Kontiki for the time being. It very nearly got to meltdown point on Wednesday when the Kontiki gear linkage unlinked but, being Dave, he went mad with a welder and managed to get it fixed in time.

So, the Matiz is on e-bay and Dave is busy in the workshop getting the 2CV back on the road. In a way it’s forced our hand, all the cars have to go sooner or later.

We had our first viewing on Friday, some people came, viewed and went, it was all a bit of an anti-climax really. Now we know what to expect, we probably won’t be running around like headless chickens before the next one.

It’s been a gorgeous week, bright sunny spring days that make you feel alive. The crocuses have joined the snowdrops and aconites in bloom and the daffodils aren’t too far behind. We made the most of it by getting out in the garden as much as we could this weekend.

A big part of our life we haven’t mentioned so far is morris dancing. Ann-Marie dances with Pig Dyke Molly and Bourne Borderers, two very diverse traditional English dance sides, Molly originating in the Fens and Border in the English counties bordering Wales. Both sides practice on a weekday evening when Dave’s at work so at events he normally takes on the role of baggage handler rather than dancer. On Saturday afternoon we had a Bourne Borderers workshop, an opportunity for Dave to join in and whack things with a big stick. We had a brilliant time, followed by good company in the pub afterwards.

2 or 3 years ago Ann-Marie lost Dave’s Mum’s ruby ring while weeding the veg beds, despite searching for it and digging the beds over every year since, it was never found. Today, whilst digging them over for what is probably the last time, she found it! We are truely blessed.

It all got a bit silly with the lists this week but we think the figures are as follows:  Added to list = 3, ticked off list = 4, statistically we're winning, it just doesn't feel like it.