Scottburgh Car Show

Sunday 19 July.

 

 

 

The South Coast Motor Club were meeting at the Spar carpark this morning to drive together up to the Scottburgh car show. We left the house at 7:30 am for our walk and to go via the Spar to see the cars before they left. We walked over to Abingdon and straight down the hill. A few open sports cars passed us on the way down. At the carpark there was a number of cars already there and more arriving.

South Coast Club's cars

The types varied from MG's and Triumphs to kit cars and old Ford and Vauxhall saloons. We walked around the parking area admiring them until they all left in a convoy at 8 am. We continued our walk and headed up Old Faith Rd home. It was a fairly easy climb at first then levelled out for a bit before hitting the long steep section. When I was running this steep section always reminded me of Poly Shorts, the famous Comrades' hill, as it wound its way up through the trees. I pushed on and when I reached the junction with Edinburgh Rd I turned to go back for Moira but she wasn't far behind and we stuck together home from there. It was a good route and a challenging hill to tackle.

 

When we got in Moira had her shower and I made the tea and toast. When Moira was finished she made the bacon, sausages and eggs while I worked on more cement chipping until the breakfast was ready. After I had washed up the dishes I had my shower then we got ready to go to Scottburgh. It had been cool again when we were walking but as we drove up the highway it began to get hot forcing me to turn on the air conditioning. I read my book while Moira drove up the road, there wasn't much traffic about.

 

The car show was in the High School grounds in Scottburgh. This was next to the golf course and along the road where we lived in the granny flat belonging to Bob and Pat for six months just after we retired. The carpark had a 'full' sign up and there were cars parked all along the verges on the adjacent streets. We found a place on the verge on the street opposite the gate into the golf course. It only cost us R10 each to get in, the pensioner's rate. The carpark was on the lower field and we had to make our way through the school grounds to the upper sport's field where the show was set up.

Scottburgh Car Show

We stopped at the beer tent and looked over the field, there were row and row of collector's cars all highly polished and in excellent condition even though a lot were about 50 years old. There were many tents and gazebos pitched on one side and selling various kinds of food. And as usual there was the public address system pumping out pop music. It's a curious thing that organisers of event seem to think that people can't survive without music blaring out!

Alex and his MG

Moira phoned Alex and he said he was in the beer tent that we were next to. We soon spotted him and he bought us drinks. We sat outside with a couple of friends of Alex from Jo'berg, another pair of 'petrol heads'. We sat now in the warm sunshine and refreshed ourselves with the cool drinks before starting to wander around the exhibits. It was very interesting and we saw nearly all the types of cars we have owned over the years; Austin A35, Ford Cortina, Ford Capri, Ford Anglia, Morris 1100 and Land Rover. There was lots of sports cars and Alex had his MG on display. We saw a Morris Minor Traveller that was in immaculate condition, it was gleaming and the unique wooden surrounds on the back were varnished and shining. We chatted to the owner and he wanted to show of the engine before we moved on, it was spotless and glistening as well.

Gleaming MM Traveller

Next in line there were three white Morris Minor 1000s, and I was reminded of the times I drove the girls to school in the morning and we had a car spotting game. You got 10 for a VW Beetle, 100 for a white Beetle, a Minor 1000 was worth 1000 points but the very rare white Morris was ?? we never spotted one.

Three white MM 1000's

 

Later I sent a photograph of these cars to Suzy and Margaret to remind them. Once we had been round all the cars we looked at the food tents for lunch but there were long queues at them all. We decided to head down to the sea front and get something to eat there. Alex was hanging on at the show and to see his friends so we said our farewells and would see him at the end of the year again.

 

We picked up the car and drove down to the carpark at the beach. There used to be a restaurant there but it was now closed. There was a cafe that had a sign saying 'wors rolls' but when we asked for two found they were all finished! We drove up into the town and spotted a curry house. We stopped there shared a lamb and a chicken curry with a portion of rice and a naan bread. We had a wait while it was prepared and had a beer to keep us going. The curries weren't bad but had a lot of bones!

 

After our lunch we made our way back to 'Tweni and I read my book again as Moira drove. As we got home and I was tuning into the cycling on TV Suzy phoned on 'Face Time', she had been to Port Glasgow and picked up our mail. There was a letter from the income tax assessment department. The guy had received my letter about the places and countries we stayed over the past 10 years to determine where we were resident. He had decided that I wasn't resident in South Africa for the periods 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 but in the UK as each year I had spent more than 91 days there. He now says that I have to pay the full UK tax on my pension for these years, amounting to £6700 and to claim back from SARS what I paid in SA. I don't for a minute think that this will be easy. We spotted a SARS tax office in Port Shepstone on Saturday next to the 'Paint Pot' when we were looking for paint and will go there tomorrow and see what they say about the situation.

 

I settled down after the call from Suzy to watch the cycling but couldn't concentrate on it as my mind was turning over the tax problems what to do about them. When the 'Tour' did catch my attention they had gone over the small climb of Cote de l'Escrinet and Cavendish who was not in the best of health and other injured riders were left, they came in 9 minutes after the main bunch finished the day. Cavendish must have been disappointed as this stage was the last one for the sprinters before arriving in Paris. There had been a few breaks earlier but they only managed a couple of minutes advantage before being caught. All the teams were together for the final 30 km of flat cycling into Valence and the bunch sprint with Greipel winning for the third time.

 

During the adverts early in the cycling I checked on the other sport's channel for the cricket score. England were in again chasing 508 after Australia had declared at 254/2 . England weren't making a very good job of the chase and were on 25/2. After the cycling I turned over again but there wasn't any cricket to watch, England were all out for a miserable 103 and came no where near saving to the match. I moved quickly to the golf. The weather had improved and the players were hitting lots of sub-par scores in the calm sunny conditions. The interesting thing was the joints leader with the South African, Oosthuizen, and the Australian, Day, was an amateur from Ireland, Dunne. They were all at 12 under going into the final day. An amateur hasn't won the Open since Bobby Jones in the 1920's. The other player only a shot behind was the American Spieth who has won the Masters and the US Open already this year. Another record if he wins his third Major in a row.

 

We just had a light snack this evening as we had a big lunch at the curry house. Later I read my book until 'Call the Midwife' came on BBC Entertainment later. It was another that we had seen some time ago but it was enjoyable to watch again

 

 

 

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