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Autumn pictures today at Lake Vyrnwy. Colours match the car. 160 mile trip taking in some of north Wales great B roads

What a brilliant day out - spoilt only by the illness of our entertainment manager @Julie Hall - Joint Peak District AOwho we all hope will recover quickly. To be fair the day was saved by the impromptu route designed by @Lee Bennett and thanks to him. Glynn, Lee, Ash, Rob, Paul and his wife, plus yours truly arrived at a damp Tagg Lane where we regrouped and organised the day ahead. In the Peak District tradition lots of cake was consumed to prepare us for the trip out From Tagg Lane via Bakewell, Via Gellia, Matlock, Darley Dale, Chatsworth, Hathersage to Ladybower for lunch. ‘Small’ pulled pork sandwich or Steak Pie? All was enjoyed and demolished Thanks for a great time. Looking forward to Ash posting his action photos sometime and see you all soon on the quiet Autumn roads. 205 miles and about £60 of E5 and a smile ear to ear. Can’t beat it.

We'll done @Lee Bennett for stepping up! 👏

The morning started nice and early and the weather was actually quite mild and dry (didn't last!). Ash and I met up enroute near Burton and we fun drive (roads were quiet 😇) up through Ashbourne to Tagg Lane to find Andrew and Glynn waiting for us..... but no Julie and Glen (hope you are feeling better soon @Julie Hall - Joint Peak District AO!). Very soon Paul and Margaret arrived (all the way from from sunny Oldham) and then Lee drove in to show off his new Intatrim heated seats (very jealous!). Ash also showed off his new Samsung Fold phone mount.... it gives him a mahoosive satnav screwn and allows him to film using the phone through through windscreen 👌 We now had 6 cars and 7 people with nowhere to go...... I think sometimes we all take for granted the hard work AO's like Julie put into planning our days out, but not us, not today! We were all scratching our heads on what to do next without our illustrious squadron leader! 😂 Thankfully Lee knows the area well, and after a customary cake and a brew, we headed off following him cross country through some lovely scenery. The roads were very damp and slippery but we arrived safe and sound for a nice lunch at the Ladybower Inn. A word of warning if anyone decides to go there, please be careful of the potholes in the carpark, they are that deep you can see kangaroos at the bottom!!! A huge thanks to @Lee Bennett for stepping up and taking us on a great route (despite loads of closed roads due to Remembrance Sunday events).

If you look closely you can see @Kingster on a hot lap! He’s just finishing that lap now.

A trip across the country this weekend to collect the gearbox fresh from its rebuild. To recap, when I first got got the box it looked like this, caked in oil and dirt and in parts rusted right through from neglect. after a lot of graft from @windy it’s been transformed and totally unrecognisable from before. Blasted clean, new bearings, seals and pretty much a brand new box. Now looking even better than the day it left the factory over 50 years ago.

An image not put forward for the Calendar, as I did not take it. Profile page now adorned with this slightly different image. Hope you like as much as I do. 809AE6A7-BF90-4CA2-B11D-5A64C440C4A7.jpeg

Oh boy, thank you for your kind words, do I owe you an apology and an explaination? I think so, but brace yourselves because this is not normal car forum chat, this is women's gruesomeness, prepare to run a mile! ABC arrived at our house 8.45am Sunday and the Westfield was on the front ready to go, Glen and I were togged up and we were just having a chat before setting off. Then it all went wrong. My Mirena coil had half wormed it's way out Friday afternoon and my GP quickly removed it, this is where lot's of blood is involved, sorry but I did warn you. Saturday was fine, bleeding, but fine. Sunday morning was a bit of a horror movie but I had hoped it would sort itself out....until I went a bit hot and a bit faint while talking to Glen and ABC. Thinking I was wearing a lot of clothes and we needed to get into a freezing Westfield to cool down, I went to the loo, oh dear, that was rather a lot of blood and there was no stopping it. I apologised to ABC and put the Westfield away while Glen turned the MX5 into an ambulance and off we wizzed to Chesterfield Royal Hospital. A heart rate of 39 bpm and blood pressure of 40 odd over 90 odd, I think I had just lost too much blood in a short space of time, so that was it, I was fed a cocktail of anti-spasm/blood stoppers/I.V fluids and I.V painkillers and had an ECG. I was admitted because my heart rate and bp took a while to get back up and scans were not available on a Sunday, a night in Hotel du Hospital for me. The coil had been in place for 2 years to treat fibroids (non cancerous tumours) on my lady baby bits, sometimes coils just come out, so after scans and stuff they have decided to make me go into menopause for 6 months with a GnR injection to reduce the fibroids. Fun times ahead hey, but hopefully we will be rocking n rolling in the car, I might even be warm if I can have one of those hot flush jobbys 😃 It's good to talk to your wife/mother about periods/menopause and sympathise with them, it might even get you some brownie points for car blats, or practice on me and Glen, there is nothing we don't know about the women's anatomy now 😄 Hope to see you all next Sunday, I am very late for an appointment with an extra large ice cream😛

Meanwhile the engine is away for a partial rebuild. The engine was overall in good condition and had been checked and serviced prior to me buying it at the start of this year but to run it in the Costin requires a few mods to be made. In the Hillman imp the engine is laid flat but for the Costin it runs at 20degrees past vertical so it needs a few extra oil drains to be drilled in the head. After speaking to one of the specialists they advised that this is something I could do myself but the risk of hitting one of the coolant galleries didn’t fill me with confidence so we made the decision to send the head off to the specialist for them to carry out the work.

It's the breakfast meeting this Sunday at the Motorist, New Lennerton Lane, Sherburn in Elmet. LS25 6JE. From 10:30. Anyone wanting to meet up and drive in together?

So glad they looked after you and you're able to share all the grusom details. Look after yourself .

Really glad to read you're well enough to write to us. Though I've never seen any of the above in any Haynes manual! Perhaps you can persuade Glen to write a 'special edition' Take care and we'll see you soon. Ian

Going down the plastic mesh route, thanks all for the advice

We left sunny Manchester this morning to meet up with our Westy friends. We met at a Misty and drizzly Tagg Lane dairy, then off we went via Bakewell, Matlock, and Hathersage before stopping for lunch at the Ladybower hotel, then Margaret and I headed back over the Snake pass back to sunny Manchester 😎

North Wales Lakes great run out today and followed the advice to click on select images in the upload and resize

Just needs and Aeroscreen, cage and 13” rims and it’ll be perfect Scott 😁

New carpet in and almost finished. Rather like the change of colour. Original colour wasn’t available anyway.. it had to change, it was very tired looking.

We had our monthly local-area meeting last night; 7pm in a local pub.... nothing unusual, I thought. Except that I was the only one to turn up in a Westfield, which led me to suggest that we should re-name our branch the 'Comfortable Saloon Car Club' in recognition of the 80% of local members who prefer a roof and stereo. However, when I got home at 10.30pm, freezing cold and driving this mud-smuggler, I thought that they might have a point:

Fitted the brake bias valve today. It needed a bracket making to mount it to the chassis, I got a price from Fractory but they wanted over £200 so I thought I’d make it myself on the mill. Total cost £6.73 for the aluminium so quite a saving. and all mounted in position.