Another month, another Shelsley Walsh Breakfast Club
We hadn’t intended to attend since we had free sponsor tickets to the BTCC at Thruxton, which included pit tours and hospitality (and I am a sucker for any free food / drink).
Sadly, Mrs Sevenman is a bit under the weather, so that was off and I took Seventoddler to Shelsley instead. Because I was doing solo toddler-care, this write-up is a bit more child focused than others.
Nice day for it, a little cloudy but that kept the temperature pleasant. My usual route in via Lower Broadheath had a long section of loose gravel where the road had undergone ‘surface dressing’, so I decided to take the longer route back via Knightwick (as I will mention later, that was a mistake).
As is his way, the little chap fell asleep on the way over, and was still sleeping when we arrived at 8:45. A short wait while traffic filtered in and I managed to get the penultimate space in the TVR block.
He had another 10 minutes of snoozing, and I didn’t want to wake him and have a grumpy toddler, so I watched cars arrive for a bit.
After he woke up, we decided not to join the queue for breakfast since there is no way he would have stayed still for long enough so, but I managed to control him for the short queue to buy a bacon roll (£3) and pain au chocolat (£1.20). I think the £6.50 Shelsley Breakfast including coffee is better and better value, but we had to make do.
Having watching a tree being felled, we had a look at the little Shelsley church. On mentioning this to a friend later, he asked “what church?”, and I pointed to the prominent building that we could see clearly from the entrance to the paddock where we were stood, which must have been hiding on his many previous visits.
But back to cars…
After a highlight of 4 Tamoras back in March, there was one new Tamora this month I hadn’t seen before.
I had a very quick chat with the owner, Dave, who has had the car for 3 weeks and is enjoying it, but I had to dash off since the toddler had other ideas of where he wanted to be.
Nice car, I like the seat backs, it was in very tidy condition and had an interesting exhaust.
While cars are interesting, if you are a toddler, climbing around on posts and their bases is much more fun.
There were plenty of Ferraris present, but only one Vauxhall Monaro.
Stanced VWs seem to be attending in greater numbers, but I didn’t take any photos of them. Since getting the Tamora I have been gradually increasing the ride height to improve the handling (it is improved). Excessive lowering doesn’t do it for me, but each to their own.
There were a couple of Ultimas present which both looked rather quick. Some pics of one of them. It was hard to take many pics while either holding a toddler or chasing him.
Car of the meeting goes to a proper Saab – Should have had pride of place in the car park.
We left a little before 11, taking an alternate route to avoid the gravel. This was a mistake. A long wait where they were doing surface dressing (long enough to turn the engine off) then lead to a drive over lots of freshly gravelled road 🙁
In advance of a possible work trip in the car I needed a fill-up since I was down to ~ 10 litres. In the years that I have used Optimax / V-Power, Shell have been closing the stations near Worcester, so I thought about going to Tesco for some of their 99 Octane fuel, but when I saw the queue on the bypass, and also the queue towards Malvern (3 Counties Spring Garden Show?) I looped-round a roundabout and took a longer route into Malvern for some BP Ultimate.
Not my favoured fuel as it is only 97 Octane, and also not favoured for the price difference, 15p / litre more than their regular unleaded. I think that is excessive.
But overall it was a good morning out, and the TVR is tucked away again, possibly to come out tomorrow if my work trip goes ahead (family health permitting).
Same again next month.