Well I've since been out and done some stuff that has got my blood pumping again, so I now feel able to add another post. I'll not be posting as often, nor joining in so much with the forum as I don't want to slide back into the old 'pipe and slippers' mode, but with Christmas looming I thought I'd come and see what you've all been up to, and wish you all a merry Christmas.
For the last two weeks the temperatures here have scarcely reached above freezing, and although most of the country has been beset with heavy snow, we in our happy little area appear to have escaped the worst of it. Sorry for the too large pic's, I've lifted them straight from my other blog.
That's not to say that it hasn't been extremely cold, as it has certainly been that, reaching as low as - 15 one night, but there has been noticeably less snow on the ground around here which has aided my getting around on the local country lanes as usual.
The overnight sub zero temps have made early morning starting a bit of an art form, as I never did get around to fixing the choke. Nevertheless, the car starts each time, although the thickness of the oil in a morning causes it to sound very tappety on the offside cylinder until the motor warms up.
The drops of water that you see on the bonnet of the car above are not liquid, as despite sitting above a hot engine they are still frozen to a diamond like hardness which fools the eye.
One of the most beautiful things about the winter is the quality of the low sunlight. I love the way it boldly strikes the edges of forms which then makes it seem to glint and dance across an object. The ice hanging in the air gives a misty appearance to many of the scenes, subtly blending away the middle distance.
This 2cv rebuild was always intended to furnish me with a working vehicle as the end result, and true to my word I have been using her daily since the car was put back on the road. This daily use has included the need to transport or carry all sorts of unusual items, just recently sacks of coal for the fire in winter have been carried.
In the photo above you may just be able to make out the plastic sheeting that covers the back seat, thus preventing the coal sacks from spoiling the upholstery when placed in the boot. I must say that the overall finish of the car is holding up remarkably well considering this constant all-weather all-purpose use, with just a few blemishes here and there to show for it.
Another winter phenomenon of rare beauty I find, is hoar frost. In the photo above you can see the lane that I regularly travel along which is completely enveloped in freezing fog, the trees wear a coating of frost which can appear pink one moment, orange in another, and even lilac a second later due to the shifting light that is filtered by the ice crystals contained within the fog.
As with all 2cv's, on the morning that I took these photographs the car drove along this lane as sure-footed as if in the dry, and it was only when meeting a modern car coming at me sideways from the opposite direction did I fully appreciate how icy the surface actually was.
Here and there I stopped to attempt to capture some of the splendour of the winters morning, the car was left ticking over issuing its gentle burble, while I walked around trying to take pictures from interesting angles that wouldn't end up with me falling on my backside.
After a while I became so captivated with taking the photo's I had forgotten all about where I was actually supposed to be going that morning, and as I got caught up in taking more and more pictures I moved around the car in increasingly odd ways, standing in various funny positions looking for new angles.
I was reminded of a visit that I once made to the leaning tower of Pisa, where everyone assumes a strange crouched position, with arms outstretched to the front so as to appear in the photo to be supporting the tower. It looks very odd to anyone not looking through a viewfinder.
I then began to go into the bushes just off the road in order to take some 'arty' shots through the frost covered branches which was all very nice, until a passing female motorist gave me such an odd look that I felt like catching up to her just to explain that I wasn't just some weird bloke in a woolly hat lurking around in the bushes as she might have suspected.
After taking a couple more pictures I decided to move on, before the legend of 'the woolly hatted dogger' in the woods grew. I imagined myself trying to explain to some sarcastic twenty two year old copper why a middle aged man would honestly want to brave the sub zero temperatures, or the frost and ice just in order to take photo's of an old 2cv.
I also imagined having to explain to him why my tax disk was out of date, which then reminded me where I was going in the first place!.
