Hertfordshire and Oxfordshire Midweek bonus Wednesday 22nd and Thursday 23rd July

 

It was the 22nd Annual Classics on the Common organised by Harpenden Rotary club in aid of a number of charities. We travelled down the A6, took a wrong turning at the newly rebuilt junction 10A in Luton but soon found our way back on to the Harpenden road. Harpenden is a commuter town about 25 miles north of London in Hertfordshire where the house prices are double  the national average. The centre of the town is known as the village and it does indeed have the feel of one. The common is a large, attractive green space along the main road through the town with a golf course and cricket pitch and is overlooked by a couple of pubs too, so in other words it was in a great position to hold a car show. It brought traffic chaos to the town for the whole afternoon and evening. It took us nearly 40 minutes to travel the mile along the High Street and grab our spot on the Common which was strictly by pre-entry only. It was well worth it though as we were among a huge number of cars, of all types and ages many of which were rare.
 
 We were parked next to a 1924 Rolls Royce Ghost driven up from Southend for the occasion and it made our car look tiny! Paul and Shirley brought their rare Zagarto Lancia Fulvo Sport 1600, newly restored by Paul to an extremely high standard and it deservedly got a lot of attention.

Their friends Andrew and Janet came along in his yellow Capri which he has owned since he was 17 years old. Not many people can say that. We bumped into quite a few people we know and generally had a lovely afternoon wandering around looking at cars and chatting. It was packed with pedestrians as well as car owners so I imagine a hefty sum of money will have been raised at the event. The evening was broken up by our restaurant meal at Pasta Cibo in Station Rd, which had a nice Italian ambiance, good service and excellent food. I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone. We had time for further wanderings before heading home.

My dream car and even in the right colour!

 As we left, the crowds were lining the street watching us all. Luckily people were being sensible as the police had helpfully pointed speed cameras at us all as we left the town. It was easier to go back via the M1 which was a little disconcerting when we found ourselves completely surrounded by lorries but we made it safely home.

The next evening, after spotting something interesting on Facebook, billed as a Summer Showcase, Dave and I took the Model A to a place near Banbury in Oxfordshire. It looked like it was an open garden in aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind but other than that we knew nothing about it or about Ball Colgrave the company where the event was being held. To say we were blown away by it was an understatement. Well for anyone that likes car porn this was for me flower porn. I have never seen a floral display anything like it.  It turned out that the company develop and sell seeds to the trade and every year they prepare the gardens for a three week event for growers, garden centres et cetera to visit to choose their stock for the next year. There were eight acres of grounds to demonstrate the most amazing range of annual and perennial varieties of flowers in display gardens, pots, patio baskets and containers, including many new varieties for the following season.
 
 The company states "Over 50,000 plants are bedded out in traditional trial rows and informal planting schemes to help evaluate garden performance, colour range and offer inspiration for design." My vocabulary is not sufficient to describe the beauty of it all, the vibrant colours, the imagination that went into the design and the fabulous scents. They only have three full time staff working on it and then a few temporary workers to help with the watering and dead heading so they do an incredible job. I'm posting a few pictures here and a full album on Dave's Facebook page.
 

The piece de resistance was an enormous "birthday cake" of flowers which was first displayed at the RHS show in Hampton Court just a few weeks ago and somehow they managed to dismantle it and rebuild it again. The invitation came from Tim Stickings, the manager who is the owner of a stud dog for the guide dogs and is allowed to hold this special evening every year. They raised over £700 just from the sale of tea, cakes and raffle tickets. We didn't even have to pay for the enormous privilege of seeing this wonderful display. We didn't stay until the end so gave our raffle tickets to Tim with the directive that if we won a prize it should be auctioned off. We did win what must have been a very impressive flower display pot as it raised £40 at auction which was great. Disappointing though it may be that we haven't got it here in pride of place in our garden, there probably wouldn't have been much left of it after we'd got it home in the back of the Hot Rod anyway. The connection between us and Tim turned out to be cars of course. He is a member of a VW club, several of whom also turned out in their Dubs. What a novel place to go on a cruise. Now that we know what it is, we'll invite other car owners to join us next year and may be suggest to OMC that they may want to do the 45 mile ride out there through the pretty Bucks, Northants and Oxfordshire countryside and villages. The journey both ways was a bit hairy, it seemed that everyone was out to get us, cars undercutting, crossing the white line, a biker who thought he was in TT races, it was definitely silly season out there last night.

All of my pictures on this blog have not been edited or enhanced in any way as I haven't yet worked out how to do it since I had windows 10 thrust upon me. Even so aren't these beautiful? I took these photos when we first arrived before other people "got in the way". Once the sun came out the colours were even more amazing.

Saturday we went to what we thought would be a car show in Shillington but it was either cancelled or we were too late. Never mind, we enjoyed cruising the beautiful central Bedfordshire countryside on this sunny evening. We had a late start as Dave and Paul removed the engine from the dragster to take it to be dynoed.

 Busy day lifting the motor out the dragster. New power house minion is fitted Dave Brown
said Paul.