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Enthusiasts of British Motor Vehicles Built Before Nineteen Eighty Five and the Practical Classics Classic Car and Restoration Show at the National Exhibition Centre. Part 1 (How’s that for a snappy title!)

31/3/2018

4 Comments

 
by Mike Peake (Fatbloke)
Picture
The show was fast approaching and it wasn’t going well. I only had half a day’s leave left so I wasn’t going to be able to help out at set up and I would miss most of Friday at the show, Princess Gar was having Diva fits as we had a couple of exhibitors pull out at the last minute, his Cool Wall wall wasn’t a wall and the tie he’d bought for the awards dinner didn’t match his shorts. On top of all of that, the leisurely drive up to Cole Towers with my caravan the Sunday before the show couldn’t take place because we woke up to 10 foot snow drifts.
Picture
​I wanted to take the caravan up early so I could go straight to the show on Friday after work without having to worry about setting up my sleeping accommodation. It was to this end that I booked my last half day of leave for Wednesday and would take my travelling abode then.
 
Wednesday afternoon turned out to be the truly disgusting rotten cherry on top of the cake of despair. For 18 years I’ve been pulling my caravan off my drive without incident, this time however, someone must have made the wall bigger without me noticing and as the back of the van swung I felt a bit of a thump. I was greeted by this when I got out of the car to check.
I said some very bad words and then some even worse ones when I realised that Mrs FB would probably notice the result of my slight misjudgement and my sleeping arrangements for the foreseeable future were going to be either the Honda or (more likely) a hospital bed. 

​I decided to push on to Gar’s place so I could cry on his shoulder. It was just north of the Worcester junction on the M5 when someone decided to pour itching powder on top of the truly disgusting rotten cherry on top of the cake of despair and I realised just how impressive my vocabulary of bad words really was. I noticed that the caravan road lights weren’t working. I was closer to Gar’s than home so after wiggling the plug to no avail, I pushed on again wondering if I’d ever be able to shift my reputation of “bumbling incompetent fool”. I dumped my wrecked van on Gar’s drive leaving it looking like the traveller site from hell and went home.

 
The rest of the week went by in a blur of baking award winning lemon drizzle cake, packing bags and hiding from Mrs FB and her dreaded Rolling Pin of Thunder. Before I knew it, I was back at the NEC and all my woes were left behind.
Picture
A very pleasant couple of hours was spent chatting and eating cake before a jolly nice Chinese meal and an early night in order to be back at the show bright and early Saturday morning.
 
Saturday dawned and we were all up and raring to go. Phil Allin turned up to leave his work van on Gar’s front garden too so along with my wrecked van, the Brooks camper and trailer the conversion of Cole Towers to traveller site was complete, and we’d all like to apologise to his neighbours.
 
It was now time to leave and collect Liam White who was staying at a hotel near the NEC. I need to paint a bit of a picture here so you can truly appreciate what was to happen on the 10 minute drive with Liam to the NEC. Liam Is a huge, foul mouthed, ex forces Irishman who regularly chews iron bars and spits out nails. (No offence Liam)

​Due to Gar removing a couple of seats from his battle bus, the only place left for Liam to sit was on a deck chair immediately behind our dear Gar who was driving. For reasons that I can’t go into here, Liam took it upon himself to do a very creditable impression of Father Jack which involved lots of loud rude words, banging on the sides of the car and slapping Gar around the head and tickling his ears. Whilst the rest of us thought this a jolly good jape, Gar was trying to concentrate, drive and navigate the intricacies of the NEC parking system. I could see him go from “mildly flustered”, to “quite cross” and finally “bloody incandescent”.
 
It was while Gar was reversing and trying to see out the back around 5 fatblokes blocking his view, that Liam thought it would be hilarious to bang the roof really hard making us all jump out of our skins and think Gar had hit something. Well it was the last straw for Gar. He just snapped and uttered the words that will stay with me forever. “ LIAM! I know you’re hard and all, but if you do that again I WILL beat you to death!”

​Well, there was a moment of silence before we all dissolved into gales of helpless laughter at our lovable, kind, gentle and cuddly Fat Controller issuing death threats… to Liam of all people. We realised quite quickly that this reaction didn’t really help alleviate Gar’s mood, but fortunately, the drive was over and we exited the car without further incident.



To be continued....
More By Mike Peake
Enthusiasts of British Motor Vehicles Built Before Nineteen Eighty Five and the Practical Classics Classic Car and Restoration Show at the National Exhibition Centre. Part 2
4 Comments
Gar cole
31/3/2018 14:32:36

I'm not sure I get paid enough for this job 🤔

Reply
Paul Sweeney
31/3/2018 19:15:16

They usually have a whip round for the driver, dont they? :-)

Reply
Gar cole
1/4/2018 01:20:37

If I'd had a whip I might have used it in anger 😄

Brian
31/3/2018 16:35:13

I'm certain you don't.

Reply

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  • Home
  • News & Events
    • Group News
    • Group Events
  • Blogs & Vlogs
  • YouTube
  • Photo Galleries
    • 2022 >
      • 2022 Classic Motor Show Gallery
      • 2022 Fat Lamb Tour Gallery
      • 2022 NC500 - the Grand Tour of the Scottish Coast Photo Gallery
      • 2022 Glos Vintage & Country Extravaganza Gallery
      • 2022 Best of Yorkshire Tour Gallery
      • 2022 Peak District Revisited Tour Gallery
      • 2022 Gaydon Weekend Gallery
      • 2022 NEC Resto Show Gallery
      • 2022 Forest of Dean Winter Tour Gallery
    • 2021 >
      • 2021 Classic Motor Show Gallery
      • 2021 Fat Lamb Tour Gallery
      • 2021 Welsh Tour Gallery
      • 2021 Jurassic Coast Tour Gallery
      • 2021 Crich Museum & Tour Gallery
      • 2021 Staffs Oatcake Tour Gallery
      • 2021 Boston CCC Show Photo Gallery
    • 2019 >
      • Yorkshire Moors Driving Tour 2019
      • Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show NEC Nov 2019
      • New Forest Driving Tour 2019
      • Gloucester Vintage & Steam Extravaganza Photo Gallery 2019
      • Tour of the Dark Peak Photo Gallery 2019
      • Codgers do the Cotswolds 2019
      • Bubble Car Museum Gallery 2019
      • Brecon Beacons driving tour 2019
      • Morgan Factory tour 2019
      • Practical Classics Classic Car & Restoration Show 2019
    • 2018 >
      • Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show NEC November 2018
      • Isle of Wight Tour 2018
      • Brunel's Somerset Tour Gallery 2018
      • Gloucester Vintage Extravaganza 2018
      • Maesteg Charity Classic Car Show & Driving Tour 2018
      • Bubble Car Museum & Driving Tour 2018
      • Peak District Driving Tour 2018
      • Practical Classics Classic Car & Restoration Show 2018
      • Coventry Transport Museum 2018 >
        • Joel Lodder's 2018 Coventry meet gallery
    • 2017 >
      • Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show NEC November 2017
      • Snowdonia Driving Tour 2017
      • Gloucester Vintage Extravaganza 2017
      • Lupin Farm Charity Car Show 2017
      • The Shackleton Trust 2017
      • Crich Tramway Museum 2017
      • Bubble Car Museum 2017
      • Pride of Longbridge 2017
      • April 2017 Practical Classics Restoration Show (NEC)
    • 2016 >
      • Crich Tramway Museum 2016
    • 2015 >
      • Bubble Car Museum 2015
      • Coventry Transport Museum 2015
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  • More ...
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