After what has been unfortunately months of hibernation, Spring came early at the weekend and Mario finally got an outing!
Due to life and it’s demands we hadn’t been to see Mario for quite some time so we really pleased to get an opportunity to get out and about. The poor thing was rather grubby when we uncovered him but amazingly he started on the button and we gave him a quick wash down to remove the worst.
Even after a week or two the brakes often stick so we weren’t that surprised to find they were binding. After some heavy braking they began to free off and we set off on an adventure in the sunshine. After a mile or two just one brake was sticking (and smelling) a bit so we pulled over for James to adjust it slightly. Almost immediately one of Mario’s ‘fans’ going in the opposite direction had turned round to check we were ok.
With the car rolling more freely we set off towards Goodwood. Our destination was Boxgrove a villlage on the edge of the estate where the Independent Goodwood Photographers Guild of which we are members, was holding their annual competition and exhibition. Mario joined a small collection of interesting vehicles outside the hall.
The Guild which was formed a few years ago with the aim of bringing enthusiastic photographers together to share their experiences and photos from Goodwood Events. The group (predominantly on FaceBook) has gone from just being a handful of us to over 1000. The exhibition showed the just under 400 entries to this years competition. Covering 10 classes, of which you could enter seven, the standard was incredibly high. After initial judging the final selections had been sent to the Duke to Richmond to make a final selections and the results were announced at the end of the afternoon.
The afternoon was a good opportunity to meet up with old friends and say hi to a few people we only ‘knew online’ The organising committee had done a great job and were helped by other members providing snacks and drinks and the local Camera Shop and Sony had brought some cameras along to look at.
It was really difficult to select three pictures to vote for in the Amateur Photographer Category. It was quite interesting though that James and myself had picked out the same images and many of these were category prize winners. We didn’t win any awards but enjoyed taking part. Our entered pictures follow – mine first taken on a Nikon ‘Bridge’ camera and then James’ which were all taken on his iPhone.
It was really nice to be out and about in Mario. He still has a few issues with the brakes and clutch so will need a bit of TLC before the summer season kicks in and we hope to tidy up some of the bodywork too but it’s really done well considering that we restored him twenty years ago.
If you are interested in the IGPG check them out on the groups website or apply to join the closed group on Facebook
Mario the Multipla 