The Red Barn at Blindley
Heath is a very popular eatery with a lovely smart barn restaurant and has
a nice big roomy car park. The pub no longer has the large yurty pagoda
outside which was much used during the Covid era, including by us on a
couple of occasions. The pub can sometimes be quite packed and getting a
table to have lunch can be quite difficult. The Red Barn is also our last
outside mid-month meeting of the year and signals that Christmas and New
Year are not far away. The outside season is effectively over much too
quickly.
The weather here can be quite unpredictable. One year the whole of the car
park was under a foot of water and only two cars occupied the whole
carpark. Last time here it was sunny and warm and we had some 39 cars and
6 motorcycles attending. This year the weather forecast promised nice and
sunny, and gave us just as promised, - a lovely sunny day with blue skies,
and with temperatures which at times were almost uncomfortably hot. Definite
shirtsleeves weather, with the continuation of the perpetual summer we
have had this year in the SE England. The sun however makes
photography difficult because the cars are parked either in dark shade
and/or one is shooting into bright sunlight, with often disappointing
results.
This year we had 34 interesting vehicles on display, although not
necessarily all ours, and two motorcycles, down 9 vehicles on last year.
Some members also came in moderns. Even more impressive was that our Hon
Tres managed to walk the epic journey of 200 yards here, claiming
the inability to afford the cost of the amount of petrol his Humber would
have consumed making the trip.
Two new cars were noted at this meeting. One was a lovely Citroen 5CV
Trefle three-seater which has been completely nut'n'bolt rebuilt from
scratch, - and where we helped with the authentification to enable receipt
of a date-related numbereplate. The matching 5CVs of Messrs President and
Monsieur Gosset were absent; one due to a dud battery on the day, and the
other with a wife in bed with Covid. The other car newly seen was a
white and black Morris Major which nearly didn't make it here and definitely did not make
it home. More on both items at the bottom of the page.
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