Rogers' Blog for May

Chairman’s waffle

We’ll I think summer is finally here, a bank holiday weekend with sunshine! Whatever next? How long it lasts may be another thing.

My garden is looking a bit tidier & I spent the morning washing all 4 cars! Eeeek! I did find a bit of time to get the spanners out though.

Last weekend was Mannington. Not the best turnout but it clashed with Old Sodbury at Beuluie so we probably lost a couple there?

We had a good time but spent a bit of time in a big mud hole. An old friend turned up in his Disco 3 & took me for a drive, very nice! Look out for him maybe taking part in the future?

We purchased a new gazebo for the club from the proceeds from Somerley. It’s been used already but apparently I seem to have got odd sides, so I need to get back to change them. Luckily the company is fairly close so no real drama’s.

Hopefully it will help with the image of the club to attract new members.

Membership is a bit down despite all the forms & newsletters handed out at Somerley. We can only surmise that people are holding out till July to get it half price!?

We’ve put loads more in the events calendar this month. The next Somerley driving day is booked. I found a nice campsite for the August bank hols, I’ve put something together in this mag. It will be a fairly relaxed affair, a few beers around the barbi & a bit of laning.

The Website photo comp has now closed. If you missed getting an entry in you can still vote on which one you think is best.

I’m still not sure why those of you with email addresses aren’t logging in? There’s a fair bit going on in there now, with more coming.

Our hols in Fuerteventura were very nice. The weather was a bit hit & miss but that didn’t stop us enjoying ourselves.

I hired a Jeep Wrangler for 2 days to explore a bit of the island. The first day we left Corralajo & went west along the top of the island & down the west coast on a dirt track. As we got into the mountains we drove up a couple of dry river beds, one led up onto a mountain & we followed it for a couple of miles. It got a bit hairy & led up & up along the ridge for several more miles. We decided to wimp out & drove back down, nobody knew where we were & were at least 10 miles from the nearest house in an unfamiliar car on road tyres! I was quite impressed with how capable it was though.

On the second day we drove down the east coast past the city nearly to the far south but then cut across through the mountains to the west, all on road (mostly!). The roads were fantastic, smooth & pretty empty! The scenery in the mountains was spectacular.

The best bit though was the offloading, if there’s a track, you can drive it, nobody cares!

We also went boat fishing & caught Barracuda & Tuna.

Paul & I did our first Challenge in ages. Baby had needed taxing & mot’ing plus a few bits fixing but worse was the need for new winch ropes. Ouch!

The comp was on a new site near Axminster & consequently was very over grown & boggy. We got stuck in a horrible bog on 2 punches for 2 hours! The batteries weren’t charging very well & so the winches had hardly any pull.

We thought that was our day but we eventually got out & then drove like a demon to fill our card & collect another. Driving to most of the punches speeded us up & helped charge the batteries, but we thought we had no chance of a place.

Turned out everyone else had struggled too so we managed a win after all!

It was nice to see Phil & Ty who came to spectate, unfortunately they only saw us stuck in the bog!

I had an idea to swap my cars around the other week. At the moment I have a van for work & the disco to tow baby. All 3 have to be taxed, mot’d & insured, so I thought I’d get rid of the van & disco & get a nice Td5 disco van I’d seen. I could use that for work & tow with it too. Trouble is I get an average 50 mpg out of the van & a Td5 does half that! So even though I’d save one lot of tax, ins etc the extra fuel would balance out at an extra £1000 a year!!! Let alone the 3 ½ grand (+ my van) to buy it. Er, I think I’ll stick with what I’ve got.

We’re booked up for Langport & so are a few more of the committee! So look out!