Saturday, February 07, 2009

Strange goings on

You expect summer in Australia to be hot, but it's been ridiculous these past couple of weeks - the complete opposite of what's been going on in the UK.

Three days in a row last week it was over 40 centigrade. It stayed in the thirties for the next week. We didn't have a drop of rain in the whole of January. It's really stressing the flora and fauna. Leaves everywhere have been turning brown and leaping off trees, grass is crunching underfoot like snow, I've seen dead birds all over the place.

Today was mental. The mercury just tipped 50 this afternoon! Then a cool change came through and I even saw a couple of drops of rain outside. It's due to plummet to a chilly 23 tomorrow.

Stranger than the weather was seeing two TR6 on my way to work last Wednesday. I crossed Albert Park Road (of Melbourne Grand Prix fame) and saw the back of a red TR6 heading up the street. Thirty seconds later on a side road I saw another one. I know red TR6 are pretty common but this was spooky. I spoke to the owner of the second - turned out he'd literally just finished its restoration and he was in the process of posting the registration documents.

But there was nothing to prepare me for finding a familiar face hanging around at Flinder's Street Station in the centre of Melbourne. Young Paul Darbyshire (aka Burnerboy) the serial Triumphaholic and all-round nice guy. Even better was that he had a bag of Chris Witor springs to go with his cheeky smile.

Paul at Flinder's

Well, that deserved a beer ... or two! So we snuck off to the pub to launch the first ever Club Triumph Melbourne meeting. Paul won the points for travelling the furthest to attend, but I was in my 10CR 03 t-shirt so I think that makes it evens. He says he'll be back again some time for another meeting... I might have to think up some quiz questions.

Paul and Springs

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