Tag Archives: Photo

Garage build – preparation done

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The preparation for the garage build is complete, over the last few weeks since my last post, we have been busy – two skips have been filled with the garage and its contents, one run to the tip, cleared the route for a trench (for the electrics), built a raised bed and filled it with topsoil from the old vegetable plot (which will become a path when the new garage is built). The biggest job was building the raised bed, although I did get some help from Jen:

We used a custom kit from Woodblocx, which consists of pre cut and drilled treated sleepers and plastic pegs to hold them together. I was really impressed with them, although it wasn’t quite as easy as building with Lego, as I had been expecting – the pegs took a fair amount of hammering to fit, then the next layer of wood also needed a lot of hammering to fit into the pegs, but the end result is solid. We filled the bed with ten wheelbarrows of soil from the old vegetable plot at the top of the garden, which we sieved before adding to the bed. We replanted the strawberries, rosemary and thyme, which were in the old bed and added oregano, three different varieties of chilli plant and leeks, which I’ve grown from seed.

The builders and electrician are arriving at 08:30 tomorrow to start work, of course I’ll regularly update the blog with progress.

Garage build – demolition time lapse

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The old garage has gone! Yesterday, along with a few friends I dismantled the old wooden garage to make space for the new garage. I think it actually took longer to clear out the garage than it did to demolish it! There’s now just a lodge pile of wood at the bottom of the garden, so the next job is to get a skip (now that there’s space for one!) to get rid of wood etc.

Garage build – before

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In a bit of a change from my normal subjects of cars and travel, I’m going be posting about my garage build project. As some of you may know Jen and I have been renovating our house – aka the 119 Project for a few years, but now we have got to the really interesting bit, for me anyway – the garage build! There will be plenty of photographs going up on my 119 Project Flickr album, but I’m also going to add some word on here for the garage build part.

The plan is to replace the old wooden garage, which isn’t wide enough for a modern car, with a large single brick build garage, where I can relax and work on my MR2/whatever car I have. This will not be a garage just for storing junk, we will have a shed for that!

The old garage is being demolished tomorrow, so watch this space for updates!

 

Morgan Factory Tour

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Pistonheads Sunday Service at the Morgan Factory

When Pistonheads announced that they would be holding a Sunday Service at the Morgan factory in Malvern I knew I had to go! I like the values of Morgan, that it is still owned by the Morgan family and that a few years ago their then CEO Charles Morgan tested their new 3 wheeler by entering it in the Gumball 3000 rally and driving it across the USA – if only more motor company bosses had that much passion for their cars! Through my day job I have spent a lot of time – possibly too much – in modern car factories, so getting to see how a more traditional factory worked was an opportunity I wasn’t going to miss. Even Jen was excited about it and she doesn’t usually come to car things with me.

The lead up to the event didn’t go too well, the day before I’d had a tyre let go on my MR2 at motorway speed – not fun. This meant that we had to take Jen’s Fiat 500, not as fun for a cross country hoon early on a sunny Sunday morning. The beauty of the Pistonheads Sunday Service events is that they are all including, so it doesn’t matter if you turn up in a Fiat 500, you still go into the same car park as the Porsches and Lamborghinis. As usual the car park was filled with all manner of interesting cars, including a Mercedes SL “Pagoda”, a modified/restored Morris Minor which we both liked, the usual array of Porsches and Loti and even a few Arbath 500s – although Jen’s was the only standard “cute” 500.

By far the highlight of the morning was the tour around the factory – Morgan had even got their employees to come to work on a Sunday morning, just so we could see the factory working and laid on guides for a shortened version of their normal tour (30 minutes, rather than 90, due to the number of people they had to get round). The tour started with a explanation of their current line up, with a handily parked line up of Morgans. Then it was on to a museum room, pictured above, housing some important cars from their history, such as the Aero 8 which competed in the Le Mans 24 hour race.

Next it was in to the assembly workshop, where the newer cars get their BMW engine mounted to their aluminium chassis; and the traditional cars get their steel chassis built up and attached to the wooden frame. This part of the factory wasn’t too dissimilar from other car factories I’ve been to, you could see the line of cars, each one more complete than the previous and the “just in time” parts supply next to the line – but there weren’t any robots or conveyor belts in sight – the cars were resting on wooden trestles. Adjacent to the assembly workshop was the body workshop, where the aluminium bodies are shaped by hand, using traditional methods, I was in awe watching the skilled craftsmen shape sheets of metal into car parts, seemingly just by hitting it with a hammer! The woodshop was next and I’m sure this is pretty unique in vehicle manufacturing these days; the room smelt off sawdust, just what I was expecting from the Morgan factory, the workshop was in two parts, the first which we didn’t really get to see was where the wood got turned into the various parts for the frame, then in the second half, they are fitted together, then glued and screwed to form the frame, which I’m sure is harder than it sounds.

In the opposite shed building was the trim shop, where the cars go after they have been painted, now they really started to look like complete cars, the guide explained the myriad of options available and it was good to be able to see a lot of them being built. After the trim shop we went back across the yard to another workshop where the new 3 wheeler is built, what really amazed me is that the 4 wheeled cars had various workshops, yet the 3 wheelers were made in just one – 15 at a time, each car assembled by one man – that has got to be a really satisfying job!

Jen and I both enjoyed the tour, and I’ve vowed to go back for the full 90 minute tour with my Dad – hopefully tagged onto a drive of a 3 wheeler through the Malvern hills!

Hopefully Soichiro Honda’s prediction that “in the future there would be just half a dozen car companies – and Morgan” rings true and craftsmen continue to hand build cars from a small factory in Malvern because the automotive landscape would be duller without them!

Chester – Via North Wales

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MR2

Since our trip to North Wales last year, I had wanted to drive my MR2 on the Welsh Mountain roads, so as we were heading up to Chester for the weekend I thought a detour would be in order! This photo was taken at the top of the Horseshoe pass, where we stopped for a picnic, before continuing towards Ruthin and eventually Chester. The MR2 was perfect on the Welsh mountain roads, with the roof down in the spring sunshine I was a very happy Lewis.

We spent the afternoon in Chester doing touristy things, walking along the walls, checking out the shops etc, before meeting some friends at Hickory’s BBQ restaurant – which is one of my favourite restaurants anywhere. My aim for the year is to learn how to cook pulled pork on the BBQ, if mine is anywhere near as nice as Hickory’s I will be very proud of myself.

We stayed overnight at the Village Hotel, just over the Welsh border at St Davids, and called in at Cheshire Ice Cream Farm on the way back home the next morning. I’d heard good things about it and wasn’t disappointed, it was just a shame we couldn’t take any home with us!

In all it was a great weekend, combining three of my favourite things, BBQ’d meat, ice cream and road tripping!

Wall of sake

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Wall of sake

This morning I took a trip down to Harachuku, I didn’t see any Harachuku girls, but I did visit the Meiji Jingu shrine where is wall of sake barrels had been left as an offering to the deities. Opposite them there were also offerings of French wine, as Emperor Meiji brought western clothing, food and drink to the Japanese.

Shibuya

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Shibuya

I’m back in Japan for a business trip again and having 24 hours in Tokyo before I head up to the office. One of my favourite places to go in Tokyo is Shibuya, not only is there the iconic crossing, but lots of little shops and restaurants off the side streets.

I spent a couple of hours there this afternoon, first in Starbucks (it has the best view of the crossing, and 22 hours since leaving home I needed some caffeine) then by Hachikō, the dog statue, which is meant to be the most famous meeting place in Tokyo. As well as people to watch, there were cars – S2000s with the roof down, making the most of the winter sun, Jaguars, Porsches, a Lotus Esprit but the one that woke me up was the Ferrari Enzo – the sound of the 6l V12 bouncing off the talk buildings was spectacular!

Autosport International 2014

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Autosport Show Pistonheads Sunday ServiceAutosport International at the NEC in Birmingham is traditionally the first event on the British motorsport calendar, a chance to get up close to the upcoming seasons cars and generally break up the boring off season. For 2014 there was the added bonus of a Pistonheads Sunday Service event before the doors to the show opened, and free indoor parking!

As always, the standard of cars at the Sunday Service was high, with everything from my MR2 to a Porsche GT2. Some people had even braved the freezing temperatures to arrive in Caterham 7s. However, my star of the PHSS was the yellow Nissan 350Z GT4 special edition, shown in the picture above – now a serious contender for my next car.

After a bacon and egg roll at the cafe the NEC had opened just for the Pistonheads event, it was time to go through to the show. The layout was pretty much the same as it has been since the ’90s when I went as a child, but the Performance Car Show part of it seems to have got bigger, with a lot of manufacturer presence. Tucked away in the corner between the Performance Car Show and the motorsport stands was an iterating display of cars and bikes raced by John Surtees. The F1 cars of the late ’60s are to me the most exciting despite their simplicity – I would have loved to see them racing in their day. Nearby the 2013 field of F1 cars were on display, I found it interesting to look at the details of the Red Bull F1 car, especially the rear, somehow it all looked a lot neater than the other cars, neat must equal quick (although I still prefer the earlier cars).

I felt that the Live Action Arena had too much talking and not enough live action, but once again I was impressed by the Autograss racers, as I didn’t already have a new years resolution I have made it my resolution to go to some of their meetings this year and picked up their calendar.

I had an interesting chat with an engineer from Caterham about the digital dash screens they are developing for their cars, this is of particular interest to me as infotainment screens in cars is my day day job and Caterham are one of the last companies I would expect to be developing screens. The car which grabbed my attention the most was the Zenos E10, a small track day car, built by a company based over the road from Lotus. The attention to detail on the E10 was really impressive, the car seems to have been designed by petrol heads, for petrol heads without too much interference from marketing or money men – a refreshing change and I wish them good luck.

New York Days 5, 6 and 7: Brooklyn, Broadway, Empire State Building and Home

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Great view from the top of the Empire State Building

I had actually written most of this post while I was waiting for our flight home, but the last few weeks have been so busy with work, Christmas, manflu and the 119 Project that I didn’t get round to uploading it. Sorry to those that have been left hanging!

Our last full day started with getting the subway to Brooklyn Bridge, so we could walk across the East River to Brooklyn. The bridge is well over 100 years old and at the time it was built was a real technological marvel. These days it looks 100 years old, the wooden walkway on reminded me of Llandudno pier, from our North Wales trip earlier in the year. When we got to Brooklyn it immediately felt different to Manhattan, there was a lot more space and everything seemed calmer.

After spending some time wandering around Brooklyn we took the subway to West Village and walked towards Chelsea and the Meat Packing district to find some lunch. We stopped at The Diner, opposite the Apple Store. As the name suggests it is a typical American diner, so to blend in, we both ordered burgers and cokes, which tasted lovely after a morning walking around.

After lunch we crossed the road and checked out Chelsea Market, which is foodie heaven in an old brick warehouse, somewhere we’d have liked to spend more time exploring. From Chelsea Market we got onto the Highline, a disused raised subway line, which has been turned into a park. We only had time to walk along a small section, but enjoyed the calmer atmosphere and people watching from above the traffic.

The reason we were pushed for time after lunch was that we wanted to get tickets to a Broadway show and discounted tickets are sold from 15:00 in Times Square. Unfortunately, when we got there, tickets for the shows we wanted to see weren’t available, so we tried going to the theaters directly and managed to get tickets to the Lion King, albeit at full price. After a bit of shopping on Times Square we went back to the hotel for cheese and wine and to chill out for a while before getting ready for the show.

On the way to the theater, we took a slight detour via the Rockefeller Center to see what the tree looked like with the lights on. Although, I must admit it looked pretty impressive I’m not sure it was worth all the fuss from the day before. I’m also not sure One Direction were worth camping out on the street next to the Rockefeller Center, as we saw some fans doing.

The show was better than expected, the costumes and props were particularly clever; and despite it finishing way past our New York bedtime we didn’t fall asleep. When we got back to the hotel we went up to the roof top bar for some cocktails to finish our night off in style.

We woke up to rain on our last day in New York, we only realised how much of a problem this was, when we couldn’t see the skyscraper a few blocks down from our hotel – we’d saved going up the Empire State Building until our last day. Fail! After yet another tasty breakfast at the Library Hotel, we took the short stroll down 5th Avenue to the Empire State Building, to our dismay, as we walked we noticed that the top of the tower was in the clouds. The upshot to this was that the dreaded queues we’d heard about weren’t there, so after passing through another round of airport style security, we were in the lift to the 80th floor. The 80th floor consists of the giftshop and an exhibit about the tower was built, which I found especially interesting as it was built in 1931, the same year as our little terraced house in Coventry! Later, I was told that some of the bricks used came from Nuneaton, Jen’s home town.

From the 80th floor it was only a short elevator ride to the 86th floor, for the outdoor viewing platform. We didn’t stay long, as you can see on the image at the top of this post, the visibility wasn’t great, we could barely see across the east river to Queens, but not only that – it was sleeting. We went back inside and to the original 1931 lift up to the 102nd floor, which was originally intended as an airship terminal. There wasn’t much room on the 102nd floor, so it was probably good that we were up there on a quiet day, even though we could barely see the ground. We decided that we’ll have to return to New York to go up the Empire State Building again.

After that, we went back to the hotel to check out, then out for some lunch before catching our bus to the airport. Earlier in the week we’d spied Le Relais de Venise, which we’d enjoyed a steak at when in Paris in March, so we thought we should see how the New York version compared. As in Paris, the steak frites was lovely and it all felt very French, even if there was a bit more space around the tables than in the Paris restaurant – we need to try the London branches in 2014!

After lunch we started our journey back to Coventry, as on the way to New York everything went smoothly at JFK and before we knew it was the next morning and we were back in the UK. After 4 long haul flights in 20 days I was looking forward to being home for a bit, but incase we had felt that Coventry was a bit too quiet after 5 days in New York, we’d arranged to meet Jen’s friend in Birmingham for some birthday drinks at the Christmas market. I can confirm that Birmingham Christmas maker is even busier than Times Square, which only a few days ago, I wouldn’t have said was possible! Also we seemed to have more transport issues getting to and from Birmingham, than we had getting to New York – it was good to be home!

New York Day 4: My Birthday

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View downtown from Top of the Rock
The main plan for today had been to visit the Top of the Rock observation platform at the Rockefeller Center and to do some shopping.

We started off with the shopping, walking up Lexington Avenue to Bloomingdales, where we stopped for a New York cheese cake at Magnolia Bakery. From there we cut across to 5th Avenue, to the underground Apple shop, which we’d actually walked past on Monday without realising. The glass cube entrance was impressive, but would have been even better if it wasn’t full of scaffolding. I like how in a town of high rise buildings Apple built what is essentially a small green house.

Next to the Apple shop is FAO Schwarz, the famous toy shop, so we had a look in there for Christmas presents for our friends’ children, before braving Tiffany’s. I’d never seen so much jewellery in one place, the store was enormous and there must have been millions of dollars of diamonds there. Jen dropped some hints, luckily she thought a lot of it was too bling and not her style and I escaped with my wallet intact.

After advice from a few people who’d been to New York before, we decided to bring forward our trip to Top of the Rock, so that we would be up there for sunset, seeing the city both by day and night. As we were walking down 5th Avenue towards the Rockefeller Center, we noticed that the NYPD were out in force and that there appeared to be something happening at the Rockefeller Center. We got our tickets exchanged and thought no more of it.

After another morning with a lot of walking it was time for lunch. We’d spotted a few branches of Chipotle, a Mexican fast food chain, which seemed a lot like Barburrito, one of our favourite places at home, so we decided to go there for lunch. It did turn out to be like Barburrito, only with bigger portions – great! Just in case we got hungry later on we also stopped at Dunkin Donuts on the way back to the hotel – when in Rome and all that.

Later in the afternoon, as we walked back up to the Rockefeller Center it became apparent why the NYPD were out in force – the lights on the Rockefeller Center tree were being switched on. In the States this is a big deal and is televised nationwide. Large crowds had already begun to gather to see performances by Kelly Clarkson and Mariah Carey, amongst others – it was chaos!

We eventually got to the bottom of the lift for the Top of the Rock, after passing through more airport style security and having our picture taken we were stood in the lift about to go up 67 floors. As the lift started the lights went out to allow us to see the illuminated shaft we were travelling up through the clear ceiling. We got up to the outdoor viewing area on the 67th floor just before dusk, although the sky was quite hazy, so we could only just make out the Statue of Liberty in the distance. We were also able to see just how far we’d walked on day two, Central Park is enormous! It was fun using the augmented reality Top of the Rock app I’d downloaded to my iPhone to identify the various skyscrapers. It was strange looking down on the smaller buildings, then realising that they were still over ten stories high – higher than the tallest buildings in Coventry! Before it got dark we took the escalator, then stairs to the 69th floor, which was better for photos due to the lack of protective glass. As the sun dropped the lights on various buildings began to switch on and soon it was time to take some nighttime images. At night the view down town is better than the view to the north, over Central Park. The Empire State Building was lit up blue and white in honour of Chanukah and dominated the skyline.

When we got out of the Rockefeller Center we had to take a detour back to the hotel, due to road closures for the tree lighting ceremony. We tried a few places for dinner, but ended up at the hotel restaurant, Madison and Vine. The restaurant seemed really popular and we soon found out why, the food was great. I had meatloaf with mushrooms and mash and Jen had steak and chips. After dinner we tried to go to the hotel bar, but it was closed for a private function again so hopefully it’ll be third time lucky tomorrow!