An Evening In The Meon Valley

A call went out on the SKCC forum - there was to be an evening blatt, so having got the route I took the long way round to the Shepard & Flock roundabout where Crunchie was already waiting, his newly returned Ultima sitting at the kerbside ticking as it cooled. After a chat the other two in our party turned up & we set off. Luckily I was at the back as my satnav immediately told me to go the wrong way. I ignored it & followed the light-aircraft-grey Ultima.

There was a fair bit of traffic about & it was mostly dawdling, but occasional gaps gave the opportunity to open the car's up a bit. We stopped on a country lane high on a ridge with the sun setting - it was a beautiful spot, but soon enough we were zipped up & back in the cars. there wasn't far to the Pub-With-No-Name (it's called the White Horse) but there was no traffic as we swept through the villages & countryside, the Ultima in these settings looks like it's just arrived from another planet & locals were looking at it bemusedly as it rumbled past.

Then some bikes came from the other direction & in the middle of them was a red Ultima, guess who'd just turned the camera off & thus missed the chance to have a photo of the back of one in focus, with the front of the other blurred - RATS.

We pulled up in the pub car park & went it. I was last in this pub 30 years ago, it seems to have quietened down a little, though maybe that's just because it was a Wednesday. I said to Crunchie that the Ultima sounded really good, when we were accelerating hard I could hear the high pitched whine even over my own car - he said "I wasn't accelerating hard" - Ah.