History of the Invasion – 30 May 2010

Having visited St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, we have always wanted to visit it's bigger, older counterpart in France. Le Mont St Michel is a two hour drive from Honfleur, and an absolutely stunning silhouette on the sky-line as you approach.

The Abbey is at the top of the mount, the town at the base, and the whole adds up to Le Mont-St-Michel. We took the trail through the Abbey, and tried to imagine life in the days of the monks.

From here we went to Bayeux, our second World Heritage stop for the day. This is of course where the famous Bayeux Tapestry resides. Probably commissioned by Otto, Bishop of Bayeux, who was William the Conqueror's brother, the tapestry is a 70 metre long embroidered story of William's invasion of England in 1066. A very efficient system of an audio guide telling the stories and pointing out details in the tapestry, keeps tardy tourists moving along.

Mont-St-Michel is featured in the Tapestry, and the audio-visual showed the WWI cemetery in Bayeaux, which has inscribed in Latin “We the descendents of the people conquered by William, liberated his homeland.” After visiting the cathedral where the Tapestry hung for 700 years, the quote provided the continuity link to our last activity for the day, the D-Day Landings. Bayeaux was one of the first towns to be liberated after the American and British troops landed on June 6th 1944, and this major operation helped to end the war.

We were able to visit the Pointe du Hoc high cliffs which the Americans scaled, using ladders loaned by the London Fire Department. Crater holes and remains of gun emplacements are still at the top of the cliffs.

Further east at Longues-sur-Mer, we saw canons still in place within the gun batteries, but most spectacular of all were the huge concrete caissons floated from Britain to form a Mulberry Harbour, named Port Winston. We visited at low tide, and a semi-circle of these are still in place in the bay. The harbour was built in a matter of three days, and half a million vehicles passed over it in the next ten months.

Off to France at the crack of dawn – 29 May 2010

Booking an 8.15 ferry seems a good idea, to maximise the time in France, until the departure morning. We had to leave at 5.30am to be in Dover in time. After a very good 2 hour trip, we discovered we needed all the extra time we had just to get through the many roundabouts in Dover and sit in the endless queues (and get chosen for a full security check – always seem to pick us!).

The drive to Honfleur takes about four hours, and we broke the journey at the lovely walled town of Boulogne-sur-Mer. The old town is full of cafes, and the old ramparts still circle the town, providing a great view over the new town and a glimpse of the sea as we walked around the walls.

Our lunch break was Montreuil, another old town with two squares, and a walled citadel which we were just beginning to explore when the rain started.

As we were so busy talking, catching up with Janine's tales of South America we missed the instruction to leave the motorway to Rouen and branch off to Le Havre. Consequently the sat-nav routed us through a traffic free arrangement of back-roads and tiny villages to get us to our destination, Honfleur. The route followed the Seine, and was a very picturesque.

The intermittent rain persisted as we wandered around this delightful old port with its half-timbered buildings and 15thC Wooden church.

There and back again – 23 May 2010

Sunday was even hotter than Saturday. We started off with the Y-Type run, but were unfortunately unable to finish, due to the distance we had to cover to return to London that day. As a result of setting out on our journey later, we noticed the heat effecting the car, as she was less able to tackle the hills.

We needed more frequent stops, the most pleasant being the gardens of Kiftsgate and Hidcote Manor, which are opposite each other in the middle of the Cotswolds. We have visited these gardens at various seasons, and they are always lovely.

The third stop on the return journey was in the town of Islip. This is a lovely small Cotswold stone town, by a historically important river crossing. The information board about the town was interesting, as it mentioned its importance as a stopover in the 17th and 18th centuries for the two day journey to Worcester. As that was where we left the rest of the car club to return to London, it did make us appreciate how easily we can travel today, even in a less than modern car.

Spring Run – 22 May 2010

The weekend did not feel at all like spring. Last weekend was decidedly cool, and in the space of a week, England was hotter than countries bordering the Mediterranean. The MG Y Type Register was holding the annual Spring Run in Ledbury. Ledbury is 120 miles from London, a reasonable distance to go for a modern car on a weekend away, but for our 59 year old Y Type with extra hot weather, it was more of a challenge. But we were delighted that our only breakdown was able to be resolved by phone, with the aid of our friendly garage and a bit of “Kiwi ingenuity”.



Taking an old car away requires some careful planning of routes along suitable back roads, and this actually makes the journey different and most enjoyable. The first stop was Thame, then through a series of new and attractive towns to lunch stop in Stow-on-the-Wold (after the break-down). We were able to then complete the journey without the need for further stops.


Ledbury is a lovely market town, full of interesting old buildings. It also has lots of lovely shops selling different things from the big stores in London.

Kempton Great Engines - 16 May 2010

It seems as though it would be impossible to run out of new places to visit in London. This weekend we made two new discoveries, of an annual event on Saturday, and a pumping station, nearly 100 years old, on Sunday when we discovered the Kempton Great Engines. Built in the art deco era, this handsome building, totally lined with glazed bricks inside, has had one of the great steam engines restored to working condition, and Sunday was of the 14 steaming days in the year. The two great engines were built to pump drinking water to London, and the guided tour, was a fascinating look at the technology developed to cope with this task. Each engine is 62ft, or 4 storeys, tall and not only are the engines on a large scale, some of the spanners used in their construction and maintenance take three men to lift them.

The engines were designed and built in the north, tested and then disassembled into numbered parts each of which weighed a maximum of 16 tons and could fit into a standard railway wagon of the time. The work and expertise that went into the engines is quite remarkable considering that, possibly, only 4 were made. They served over 50 years until the 1980s and were more efficient than the turbine driven centrifugal pumps that were installed to replace them.

Ultimately progress passed them by and instead of 140 men the site now employes 14 men, electric pumps and electronic controls, all incredibly boring compared to the grandeur of these great behemoths of the steam age.

The Rickmansworth Canal Festival – 15 May 2010

Only £1.30 took us by tube to Rickmansworth, and a whole different world, at their annual canal festival. Over a hundred narrow boats moored up to four deep, lined the tow-path and had obviously put a lot more effort into getting there than we had.

The canal-boat community had turned on an old-fashioned village fair, with food, stalls selling crafts, music a narrow boat tug-of-war and even Morris dancers.

It was a very pleasant laid-back type of day out, with many narrow boats to admire, and even briefly toy with the idea of buying one!

London to Brighton – 9 May 2010

The 27th annual MG Regency Run from Brooklands to Brighton was scheduled for today. We thought, if the real old-timers can do their annual London to Brighton run, then surely our 1950 Y Type, can make it too. It's only 70 miles, which doesn't sound much, but considering she couldn't make it 2 miles from home a fortnight ago, this was a challenge. But we were delighted when she made it to Brighton and back, unaided, eleven hours after we left home.

There was light drizzle at Brooklands, but considering the weather forecast had promised a grey day, it wasn't too bad, as that was the only rain we saw all day.

The MG organisers provide directions for a route away from motorways, and we enjoyed lovely country lanes, with many bluebell woods, and lovely village cottages covered in wisteria.

A large area on the Brighton beachfront near the Pier, was reserved for the 309 MG cars who participated in the day out. The cars ranged in age from the oldest surviving MG (1925) through to the latest 2010 models.

A rest stop was necessary for our 60 year old, so we took advantage of a beautiful bluebell wood we learnt about while chatting to other MG owners at Brooklands. The area is called White Down, and after struggling up a very steep hill, Clara was more than ready for a rest, while we enjoyed the largest bluebell woods we have walked through.