Oh, what a day!

Bank Holiday Saturday dawned sunny, bright and cloudless, signalling the chance for us to go on our first picnic of the year.

First though, I needed to visit our local tyre dealer to check out the nearside front tyre that is showing uneven wear, due I think to a maladjustment of the tracking. This was confirmed, so a new 'Continental' has been ordered and some research is taking place to find out the tracking settings recommended by Morgan....because it's not every day that a 4/4 turns up on their forecourt.

Coffee stop!

With a promise that they would get back to me after the bank holiday, we set off, down what was at that stage, quite a traffic free road, considering it was a bank holiday.

Up into the hills we went, where I was convinced most of the population would not venture, out to the A6, at the little village of Churchtown and on into the Forest of Bowland via Chipping, stopping briefly at Bashall Barn http://bashallbarn.co.uk where I spotted a very desirable Austin Healey 3000 with a rather menacing exhaust system that we heard echoing through the countryside during a coffee stop sometime later.

The 'Lower Buck' Waddington

Climbing out of the delightful village of Waddington, we reached Newton in Bowland where we had the most exquisite picnic by the banks of the River Hodder. While I was unloading the picnic chairs from the luggage rack, an MX5 pulled up and the driver commented that our Morgan was looking particularly beautiful. I thanked him and said that his car wasn't looking so bad either, to which he replied that ours was the business though and the real thing!......how very true!

The beautiful Ribble Valley

This was perhaps the nicest location in which I have read my Saturday Telegraph, but after getting to the 'Obituaries', and feverously checking to see that there weren't any of our lot there, we moved on.

Newton in Bowland

Once more through Dunsop Bridge, one of the main contenders for the geographical centre of Britain, and then through the Trough of Bowland, a fairly narrow country road ,which on Saturday was full of kamikase cyclists sweeping down the steep bits at high speed, regardless of the fact that, unlike the mountain sections in the Tour de France, there is traffic coming in the other direction.

Not a bad picnic spot eh!

What with them and motorcyclists, who lean out over the opposite carriageway when negotiating bends, always at speed, to say nothing of the particular difficulty of spotting potholes through the dappled shade under trees, it is a wonder that we ever complete a trip on rural roads without incident. As for the major roads, well that's another story.........!

Doesn't get much better than this!

On the subject of potholes, I despair. What the roads are going to be like in 10 years time, God alone knows....probably barely driveable! I am convinced that it is the constant thumping into these infernal things that has beggared the tracking on the Morgan.

After the summit of the Trough we were in Duke of Westminster country, listening to the Lapwings overhead that seem to be quite common thereabouts, then down through Scorton to the A6 and back home.

After a wonderful day the Mog was washed and is now back in the garage with a mileage of almost 20000 on the clock, completed in about five and a half years. We will be adding a substantial amount to that very shortly when we venture on to the 'Emerald Isle'.