Lakeland Trip

The weather forecast was sensational, Lancashire basking in sun all day and temperatures up to 29C.

What does a Morgan chap do on a day like this? He gets the top and sidescreens off and goes for a spin, that's what!

Garstang High Street

We had some business to do at our new bank in the delightful market town of Garstang and another visit had to be made to the National Trust property of Sizergh Castle to pick up another official parking pass for the Morgan.

Parked at Sizergh Castle

Both these calls were on the route to the Lake District so it was a 'no brainer', a picnic in the Lakes!

I was delighted, because I must admit that I love to have a specific target in mind when driving the Mog, rather than just driving around aimlessly.

'The Mason's Arms', where, just a week earlier, we had enjoyed a wonderful meal with two of our very best friends.

The route I chose was via the Lyth Valley, famed for its damsons in season, then a tiny road, just wide enough for the Morgan, towards Bowland Bridge. Slower than the main roads but utterly delightful, scenically beautiful and we hardly met another car.

Beautiful South Lakeland scenery.

The morning was glorious until we approached Windermere at around noon, when the cloud started to appear, not just over Cumbria, for looking south it was obvious that the Fylde coast of Lancashire was also cowering under leaden skies.

Above Windermere with Gummers How on the right and the Langdale Pikes in the extreme distance

It was very warm though, at least the Met Office got that bit of their forecast correct, but it is so much nicer in the sun....ah well, such is life!

Overlooking Lakeside and the southern end of Windermere, a lake that was the scene of many of my yachting escapades.

As is our wont, we drove around trying to find the ideal picnic spot ie. no people, peace and quiet, a fabulous view and level ground on which to have our picnic. We failed miserably and ended up behind a wall, marking the boundary of High Newton Reservoir in the Southern Lakes with a view that was quite ordinary by Lakeland standards.

Your hero!!!!

But at least it was peaceful and we read the morning paper, ate our delicious chicken goujons and egg butties, washed down by a glass of Chilean Merlot.

Homeward bound we saw a band of blue sky directly above our home and as I put the Morgan back into it's garage the garden was bathed in sunshine and I was 'sweating buckets'.

The moral of this story is, don't place too much emphasis on the weather forecast!

"Oh I do like to be.....

.....beside the seaside!"

We have recently returned from another visit to Whitstable in Kent where we thoroughly enjoyed a few days with our eldest daughter and her family. Living as I do by the seaside and with strong family links to Devonian fishing stock, I think the sea and water is in my blood and I love to be near it, so the prospect of some time on the Kent coast appealed very much.

The seafront

Whitstable is a working port so there is always plenty of activity to watch and it is renowned for its oyster fishery. The harbour area attracts hundreds of visitors especially at weekends who come to sample the seafood as well as to soak up the atmosphere of the place....and Whitstable certainly has atmosphere.

Whitstable harbour

As I walked in the quiet streets, early in the morning, I was approached by two locals on different days, asking why people came to the town and what attracted them to it. In describing what I found appealing about the place, the working port, the architecture, the lovely flint pebbled beaches and the shabby chic, if not downright shabby, appearance of the town in places, we jointly decided that, from their point of view, it was possibly a case of, familiarity breeds contempt.

But the fact is, that it is a funny old place, without the sophistication of perhaps a Devon or Cornwall seaside town but with the enduring appeal of an historic, honest working town.

Whitstable High Street

Another notable fact is that it has one of the longest High Streets in the country populated almost exclusively by independent traders, no Superstores in the immediate vicinity, so an absolute delight.

Your hero 'crabbing' with two of his grandsons (the crabs kept dropping off!)

Staying in an extended fisherman's terraced cottage in the centre of town, we were ideally situated just five minutes from the High Street and the harbour.

Flying paper planes on the beach.

It was a lovely holiday and we're looking forward to visiting the place again, it does have an irresistable appeal.

'The Street'. a feature that appears on the shoreline at low tide.

Incidentally, we didn't travel in the Morgan on this occasion but in our newly acquired Volvo V70 which performed beautifully and despite its powerful, gorgeous 5 cylinder175 bhp diesel engine returned 50 mpg, calculated by me and not taken from the onboard computer reading. The big Volvos are very economical and this performance compares very favourably with our previous V70.

PS Make sure that you read Graham Tapper's story about his latest journey in his 4/4 through France to Italy on his blog 'Morgan travels with Graham and Helen' moggo-blog.blogspot.co.uk, lovely photographs and a great story.

Cheeky chap!!!

In recent correspondence, my learned friend who enjoyed his recent drive in a 4/4 at the factory and who was the subject of my prevoius post, questioned my long-held opinion that a spare wheel should be supplied on all Morgans instead of the silly puncture repair kit that is provided and which necessitates the costly replacement of the punctured tyre.

The paragraph in his letter that referred to this matter is as follows:-

  "......I would like to see an update on your bizarre idea that Morgans should have a full spare wheel. To wit: exactly how many punctures have you had in all your years of ownership? And how many Morgan owners, not known to be life's spring chickens, could actually change the wheel? Might it not be better to use the spare wheel space to store something useful? A defibrilator?"

On the basis that there is perhaps some truth in his comments, I do not intend to respond....cheeky devil!!!

Another Morgan Experience.

An old friend of ours has once again enjoyed a Morgan Experience at the factory, but this time in a 4/4.
There follows his account of the event.......


.........."I have been out Morganeering again, so this morning I peeked at your blog.
Good lord Chris.
Seems you are spending much time trying to avoid the clutches of the grim reaper!

This year my boss Mark gave me a Virgin voucher for a balloon flight over the Peak District.

It didn't take me long to exchange the voucher for another run in a Morgan at Malvern.

This time a red 4/4 - brand new - with the Ford Sigma 1.6 engine. Please see pics. First pic (green car) points up how much better a Morgan looks than the fast-depreciating tin boxes pictured behind. More importantly it shows how hard the rain was bucketing during my one-hour trundle. I was quite happy about this as I have often worried about your tale, Gleave, of wrapping your leg in a towel in wet weather and I wondered if all Morgans suffer ...

The Looks - I would not have chosen red - but on this car with the black wheels and chrome spinners I have to say the colour looks rather natty. I like the over-riders too - they suit the super-slim 4/4 body. Rear hi-level brake light still looks most odd. Bonnet strap detracts from the cars best feature - the long louvred bonnet. Tsk tsk - like putting a nose ring on Audrey Hepburn. Full marks though for the "correct" round door mirrors. I have noticed over the years that many fine sports cars (notably MX-5) retain a slight girly image. Mercedes SLK too. What I mean is that a man driving those cars doesn't always look quite right. I don't know why. But with even this slimmest of Morgans (they are very small cars), there is nothing pansy looking about a man behind the wheel. And also (the school secretary when I was a boy had a Morgan) a woman behind the wheel of a Morgan looks absolutely right too. Though you don't see that often enough.

Features - heated seats - love them! Though I can sense your lip curling Chris "because they didn't have them in 1930". No Chris, they didn't have heated seats in 1930. They had diptheria and rickets and cold bottoms. Heated seats, like antibiotics, are a godsend I assure you. If it were a toss-up I would rather have heated seats in a Morgan than a steering wheel. That way I could keep warm - admittedly while not really going anywhere. Also a heated windscreen. Worryingly - "it might have a loose wire" - this was not working even though the car only had 1,300 miles on the clock. Leather quality, fit & finish all a great improvement over the 1986 model I last hired. The binnacle dial directly in front, through the steering wheel, is the rev counter. The speedo is way over to my left on the passenger side. So the passenger can report back what speed you are doing, I suppose. Make up your own mind on that one. I was told this arrangement is reversed on the Plus 4 "because it has a different ECU". Huh? Steering wheel was a thin wooden affair with drilled metal spokes. Looked the business but very uncomfortable to hold - cold and too thin (I have hands like spades) I would much rather something thick & leathery. The handbrake I would like to claim is further away than in earlier models. But in truth as I get older it just seems more of a stretch. Getting in & out of the car with the roof up is most inelegant. I regarded it as a triumph when I managed to emerge without putting my hand on the road. Followed by a little stagger along the pavement as I tried to straighten back up.

This was the demonstration car.

Performance - I am told this does 0-60 in around 8 seconds. It was peppy enough and remarkably is supposed to give 50mpg. On paper the performance is not much down on the Plus 4. I could  live with this little engine, I think. Just. It endeared itself to me by starting without any churning AT ALL. The very moment I turned the key the engine started running. I have never experienced that before in any car. The engine though is typical of other Fords I have driven, in that their engineers always strive for a linear power delivery - it pulls with the same strength throughout the rev range (ok to 6,000rpm). I don't know why Ford do this - its was the same in a 2.5 litre Mondeo I had - very smooth put there is no point in the rev range where the power kicks in. In most cars you learn at which rpm you will get most boost, and select the gear to get that point for overtaking. But in this thing, no. I would guess that the torque curve looks very flat throughout. Sad face.

Ride. Jolly good. All felt solid & well built. Relative to the 3 wheeler the ride was very smooth, comfortable. Exhaust boomy under hard acceleration. Not raspy, or rorty, or howling. Just boomy. MX-5 gearbox could not be bettered.

The Rain. Aha. A pleasant surprise. Very heavy rain on test. Nothing coming in to the footwells at all. Only slight spots coming through the tops on the windows, but only on one side depending on which way the sideways rain was attacking the car. Nothing to worry about. Impressed that the easy-up hood allowed nothing through its seal. Less impressed with the 3 wipers, which struggled.

Sum up. A time machine, but not just back in time. It warps time. This is still the only car in the world where a one hour journey passes in 10 minutes."

He finishes his letter by describing me as 'a decrepit old git'!!!  Fair comment I suppose!

A 'right picnic' at Donington and a proper picnic with the Morgan!

Some weeks ago we were looking forward to a week on the Norfolk Broads with a couple of friends on a 42 foot motor cruiser. Sadly this was not to be!

Helen and myself only reached the Donington Service area on the A50, about half way to meeting up with our friends in Thetford for the night, prior to taking over the boat.

We had stopped for a comfort break and the next thing I knew, I was underneath the right hand urinal in the Service's loos with a concerned lorry driver encouraging me to get up and live!
What a way for a man of my calibre to go!!!!

Anyway, to cut a very long story short, I ended up in the Royal Derby Hospital, where I spent two nights, having blood tests and scans that revealed a pulmonary embolism and a couple of other non life threatening issues.

The reason for my collapse has been referred to as postural change and micturition, which to the uninitiated means sitting down too long in a car and then peeing. Apparently it is quite common amongst old gits like me and as a result I am now going to be a slow laner and stop for a walk around every hour on long journeys.

As I bruised my coccyx when I collapsed it has meant that sadly, lowering myself into the Morgan's cockpit was out of the question for what has been weeks.....but today I managed it!

Morecambe Bay and Heysham Nuclear Power Station in the distance on the right

The prospect of a lovely day today encouraged us to once again drive into the Trough of Bowland where we spent two or three hours on the Duke of Westminster's estate, with a very pleasant Sicilian White and other 'goodies'.

The open road beckons.

As you will notice in the photographs we were sitting by a small tributary of the River Wyre, the gorse was in bloom, Marsh Marigolds bordered the river and we spotted a Kingfisher and a Grey Wagtail and a good number of Lapwings, supposedly an endangered species, but thankfully not here. Not a bad way to spend a few hours, but you know, it ain't Summer yet in the UK, especially in the north, there was still a sneaky breeze which was very noticeable when the sun disappeared behind a cloud and amazingly, we noticed that many of the trees were still only just in bud.

Coffee at our first stop.

Let's hope that the effects of 'El Nino' will not be too severe and we can enjoy many more sorties in the Morgan.

A very pleasant Sicilian White in a lovely spot.

Incidentally, another vehicle has joined the Morgan in the garage, a 2009 Volvo V70 2.4D SE LUX to replace our ageing 2002 V70 with 134000 on the clock. The new one has a lot to live up to though, but I must say that after 12 years, the acquisition of another car has been quite therapeutic.......

.......and another thing while I think about it!

All my readers know that I have been highly critical of 'Top Gear' and was hoping that I would enjoy 'The Classic Car Show' on Channel 5..... Well I don't!..... It is too precious by half, with presenters almost as annoying as those on 'Top Gear'. Who is interested in Jodie Kidd driving down Route 66 in a Camaro and Bruno Senna charging around the Mercedes Test Track at Brooklands etc.,etc.,etc. Obviously some people might be, but I am not.

I am interested in vintage and post vintage classics. Cars that ordinary people owned, expensive or otherwise, such as, Morris, Riley, Lagonda, MG, Morgan, Vauxhall, Ford, Bentley and Austin, plus other fascinating marques, a subject that could fill a TV series ten times over... why does it have to be all about speed and supercars?

God help us if Jodie Kidd fronts the proposed new 'Top Gear'!!!!!! 


 

What a joy.....

.... to be able to watch a decent, interesting and adult motoring programme.

I am referring to the new series on Channel 5, 'The Classic Car Show' with Quentin Willson and Jodie Kidd.

What a difference from 'Top Gear', a programme that I avoid like the plague, not wishing to watch the antics and tomfoolery of the three puerile presenters, being oggled at by their adoring fans, prattling on about cars that all but a tiny minority will be able to afford and denigrating those vehicles that ordinary mortals can afford.

'Top Gear' is, in my opinion, a programme that has done much to fuel the appalling driving standards on our roads, with its emphasis on speed, aggression and cynicism.

'The Classic Car Show' is obviously geared towards lovers of classic cars and judging by the first programme yesterday will keep me thoroughly engrossed; a very civilised programme.

With my keen interest in classic cars it will certainly satisfy me, although I think that it is worth mentioning the glaring gap that seems to exist in the market for a sensible motoring programme about ordinary, everyday cars, comparing and assessing their design, practical features and technical performance etc.

I swop the Morgan for a Megane!!

We'd arrived at Alicante Airport and the young woman at the car hire desk handed me a square shaped piece of plastic with a tag on it displaying the car hire company's name.

The scene from our hotel at Manchester Airport prior to our departure the following day!!!

Moraira

What on earth is this I said, to which she replied that I should stick it in a slot in the dashboard and then press the starter button to get underway. After considerable mental and physical contortion in the dimly lit car park the slot was found, I shoved the thing into the slot and the whole dashboard lit up like Blackpool Illuminations. You know I am finding it increasingly more stressful at airports without all this new gadgetry adding to my anxiety.

Moonrise over Ibiza. A view from our apartment...

....and another shot of the same event.

Anyway, it proved to be a pleasant car to drive, albeit that it could have done with a bit more clout to climb Puig de la Llorenca, the mountain on the side of which our holiday accommodation was situated at around 400 metres above sea level, overlooking the Mediterranian and just underneath the summit.

We had decided that we would escape the rigours of an English winter by visiting, for the whole of February, the only area of Spain that we hadn't visited before, the Costa Blanca.

Calpe and the Penon de Ifach (known as the northern rock by the Romans to distinguish it from the southern rock of Gibraltar)

We based ourselves in an apartment in Moraira, between Javea and Calpe and looked forward to some reasonable temperatures and sunshine, to recharge our stocks of vitamin D.

Alas, initially the weather was cold, in fact Valencia along the coast to the north had a fair covering of snow on our second or third day and I opened the front door on the day in question to a few snowflakes fluttering down.

Cycling team in training with Parcent in the distance.

The apartment was not geared for use as a winter let, but fortunately we found a couple of 'blankets' for the bed, went out and purchased four hot water bottles (12 euros) and an electric fire (19 euros) to bolster the existing air-conditioning/heating units.

The almond blossom was out in the Jalon Valley.

The low temperatures lasted only for a short while and for over three weeks we have enjoyed temperatures of 14-22 degrees, much higher than those at home, athough it has to be said that next time we will not be renting a property on a hillside, regardless of the view, as the temperatures at 1200 feet are somewhat cooler than at sea level.

Waiting for our 8 euro five course meals in the village hall at Parcent!

We travelled 500 kms plus in the Megane, particularly enjoying the Jalon Valley where we stopped for lunch on one occasion in the local village hall, five courses including a bottle of wine for 8 euros each, just wonderful.

Moraira Marina with Calpe and Ifach in the distance.

In Javea we added another Paradore to our collection, although only for coffee on this occasion, bringing our total of Paradore visits to 23, throughout the whole of Spain.

El Portent and beach, our favourite.

The cost of living is so much lower than in the UK and a couple of ex-pats who we met said that they lived well on a weekly shop of £70 !!! Certainly, we lived extremely well, enjoying the wine and Senor Torres's brandy and enjoying the competitively priced Menu del Dia's from time to time.

Climbing towards the summit of the Cap de la Nau.

But oh, it's just so nice to sit there in the sunshine watching the world go by.

Dawn from our bedroom balcony.

Yesterday, as I sat in the minimal surroundings of a local garage, with a single bar fire for company, waiting for the Morgan to pass it's MOT, I realised what a lovely time we have had.