Annie and I meet snow

A light dusting of snow

It’s been quite a while since I wrote about Annie because, for the most part, she’s been extremely well behaved, happily carrying us from A to B and back again, trundling along without a care in the world. All through the lovely long hot sunny weather last year, she never put a wheel wrong, passed yet another MOT without issue and basked in admiring glances wherever she went.

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There be Bronze in that there Rubble Heap

One of my rescued Bronze Fennel seedlings.

If there is one thing guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of a Land Rover owners partner, it is the words ‘We need to bleed the brakes!’ and it was those words that Mud uttered yesterday! My heart sank because bleeding the brakes of a series Land Rover is never easy, is never a quick job, always involves much cursing and swearing and invariably results in mutterings about rusted bleed nipples, located in nigh on impossible to reach places, due to the nonsensical design whims of the Land Rover engineers of by-gone days.

Knitting in a Land Rover

Keeping dry(ish): knitting in the Land Rover.

August Bank Holiday Monday dawned and, what a surprise (not), it was raining. To be fair we weren’t in much of a position to complain because for most of the previous week, the weather had worked in our favour, with sunshine during the day and what rain we got, occurring, for the most part, overnight. Mud had been able to get a whole raft of jobs on our Series 3 Land Rover done and I had been spared hours of watering duties.

After the famine comes the …. er … feast?

Our new garden feature

Back in December 2009, with the Jap’ pick up, Thomas, aging fast and the cost of maintenance and repairs of said vehicle escalating at a rather alarming rate, Muds’ Land Roverless status reached breaking point and he set about persuading me that an old, battered classic Land Rover was the only sensible solution to our vehicular needs. The ease with which he could repair it, the much lower cost of these repairs, minimal historic vehicle insurance costs, not forgetting the taxed exempt status of such a vehicle, were all tools used to persuade me that a Series land Rover project was the way forward and I fell for it!

Happy Birthday Annie

Annie today

On 13th February 1985, my long wheel based, series III Land Rover ‘Annie’ was first registered with the DVLA. We have no idea what colour or specification she was when she left the factory and we can only speculate from clues found around her bodywork, on her initial employment (which we believe was as a tow truck) but these days, she is a much loved marine blue, truck cab with a 3/4 length tilt (canvas) over her load bed

I still remember my misgivings when, back in 2011, Mud announced that after careful consideration and much trawling of the internet, he had come to the conclusion that the ideal car for me was a Series Land Rover. 

Three Mudlets, a walk and Annie does it again

I had hoped to take a picture of Annie basking in her success (and the sun) but the rain stopped play.

As I walked backed into the kitchen last Saturday morning, the two youngest Mudlets greeted me with a level of semi interest brought on by the hope that my bag may contain more than a newly purchased box of painkillers. The need for painkillers, had been the reason given for why I had popped out but this still didn’t stop the girls from hoping that sweets or chocolate might have found their way in to my bag.

Annie in disgrace

Butter wouldn’t melt …… sadly the same couldn’t be said of the electrics.

Well okay maybe that’s a tad unfair, as she is over 30 years old and, let’s be honest, most modern cars would have long since made that final trip to the scrap yard and my beloved Series 3 Land Rover isn’t ready for that particular journey by any means. However, which ever way you look at it, try as I might, and believe me I have tried, I can’t think of a worse time for a cars lights to fail than in the middle of nowhere, on a very dark, miserable autumn night with me driving …… alone!

Ciggy has a seat fitted …. vroom, vroom!

“Vroom, vroom,” said Little Mudlet …… but then she actually IS six years old!

As lunchtime came around today, I sat wondering where oh where was Mud. You see, at lunch time on a normal day, I would usually expect to have been booted off the computer at noon, amidst mutterings of ‘You’ve had all morning to do your blog’ which isn’t actually true but hey ho! However today, by 12.35 there was still no sign of my hungry other half coming in from the office for his totally uninspiring cheese sandwich.

More Strawberries

Well it looks like the real deal

With my ever growing mound of freshly picked strawberries quickly reaching mountainous proportions, I needed to come up with yet another idea or three on how to use them. I hate to throw any home grown produce away and with the temperatures yesterday and today in the extremely high 20s and bordering on the low 30s (Mud informs me that the temperature actually reached 30.5 at one point this afternoon), there was a real danger of some of the berries starting to turn and so a solution had to be found pretty quickly.

“You could make jam.” was Muds’ suggestion.

It’s that time again

Ciggy Series 2 SWB Land Rover battery not included …..

Every year, on two separate occasions, I find myself sitting in a waiting room, nervously thumbing through dog eared magazines, anxiously checking the clock, hoping for good news, anticipating the worst. Everything hanging on the verdict of one person, probably the most terrifying and yet powerful person in the automotive industry ……. the MOT inspector!!!

February it was Annie, my 30 year old, Series 3 Land Rover, who passed not quite with flying colours, as she did have one advisory but at least that one minor detail can be fixed by Mud, on the front drive for minimal cost and frankly, for such an old vehicle, one advisory is pretty good going all things considered.