Wow!
What a drive! I got home quite early and still collapsed on the sofa straight away! But to rewind a little...
I woke up to the melodious alarm in my phone and bright sunlight filling my room. Glancing out of the window, I saw clear blues skies and golden sun. I thought it looked quite promising, myself. However, in the 20 minutes it took me to shower and get dressed, it got remarkably cloudier and greyer. As I got into my car, I saw three snowflakes gently caress it. But I soldiered on!
I was faced with an unusual dilemma -- which car should I take? Cruises generally mean the Z1, but since this was meant to be a beginners' cruise, I thought something a little slower and more civilised would be appropriate, so I jumped in the 635 CSi and headed out to the starting point. Everybody was there bright and early, with the small exception of one furrowed-browed regular, who arrived as we were about to take off, looking suspiciously like he'd had a couple the night before!
It was a delightfully motley crew that left the Golden Arches 15 minutes late (despite my best efforts!): 1 Zinnobar 635 CSi (
spokey), 1 Pistachio Z3(
kazvet), 1 Topaz Z3(
alfie), 1 Sterling Z4 (
dario), a Quartz 120d (
Roaders) and a rather well mud-camouflaged M3 CSL (
Giles). Since I'd run my 635 CSi through the carwash the night before, I did feel others could have made more of an effort.
Anyway, we sallied forth through the countryside, encountering only minimal traffic and one or two rather attractive snowshowers. I knew it was bad, because neither
kazvet nor
dario had their roof down! Still, we managed to keep our cars on the road, even though
dario had switched off his DTC so that he did lots of slidey-slidey stuff. The naughty boy! He's going to be really pleased with me when I tell him that the first stretch of video footage didn't come out at all because the camera was aimed too high!
Still, I did manage to get a couple of minutes showing how much
dario struggled to keep up with me before we got to Flag Fen! We had a cup of coffee while discussing with
Roaders how well his beautifully-handling 120d was keeping up with the more experienced regulars.
Because the weather was really tough, and the roads were covered with ice and so forth, I decided after our first stop to head directly to the pub for lunch and forego the pleasure of the bridge of Chavs. We lost
dario at this point, due to family commitments!
None of that gastro-pub malarkey in the Fens, I'm afraid -- just good, simple food in generous quantities. Mine was lovely, and everyone else was far too polite to complain!
Dessert was good for a chuckle: we'd all decided to abstain, except for
Giles. However, once we'd encouraged him to place an order, I decided it would be rude to let him suffer on his own, and
Roaders suddenly turned out to be equally well-mannered!
We staggered out to the cars and decided to give Holmes Fen a miss too, as it was snowing again.
So we spent most of the afternoon driving away from the snow, and actually wound up finding some sun and clear skies from time to time.
All too soon, we were at the Chav Car Park in Sneeits, and my brief exploration of
Roaders's brilliant collection of toys in the 120d was cut short by the arrival of some bracing sleet. We hurriedly exchanged farewells, and rode off in our different directions.
I had fun, I really hope the rest of you did, too! I think we proved today that a little rain, sleet and snow need not stop a cruise from being successful!
Thanks to all who came, and a special thanks to
Roaders, who braved a massive journey to be part of the cruise! I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope it inspired you to join some more!
It was this dirty when we started, honest!
Oo-ar, them's one of them new One Series...
Three decades of BMW noses
Feb 20: General BMW Cruise
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Nigel wrote:
Still no-one from East Angular, though.
