A Day For The Queen And The Alphards

Today I abandoned my sister and her granddaughters at the campsite. Well, not abandoned really, but I left them at lunch time and will be gone all day tomorrow because I have an event to go to in Castle Combe near Chippenham in Wiltshire. The drive was a slow but beautiful 2 hours away. I stopped just outside Chippenham and paid an unexpected visit to my friend Queenie. Queenie was a dear friend of my mother’s and I try to visit her whenever I can. She was very happy to see me as well, even though I came unannounced and pulled her away from the knitting club at the care home where she now lives. Queenie turned 90 a couple of weeks ago and she STILL has very little grey hair! We had a very pleasant hour together.

Tomorrow I am meeting with a large group from the Alphard owners club. We are all attending the JDM - Japanese Domestic Market - car rally at the Castle Combe race course. I attended last year and it was a great time to meet others in the club, many of whom I know only online. Last year we had over 70 attend from all over the country. This year we are a smaller group but the whole event will see about 1500 participants, all with ‘grey imports’ of used Japanese vehicles. Most are classic cars and racers and although the mostly middle-aged Alphard owners don’t fit the normal demographic, we all quite enjoy the whole event.

So....since the event will be a bit of a showcase, I decided that Alfie definitely needed a good wash, so off we went to an excellent car wash and he was sparkling when they were finished.

After meeting some of the other club members for dinner, four of us made our way to the race course site where we were going to camp for the night. Most of the others were staying at more traditional campsites (or hotels). WE had no showers or hot water. But we DID have a great sunset! And one of the other campers was testing a new camping stove that has a pizza stone. So we were treated to some excellent pizzas for a bedtime snack! Who would have thought? Pizzas on a camping stove! Brilliant!