Fidler in the Hood: Hello, goodbye – parting is such sweet sorrow

NOW, that’s more like it: the weather, of course. The ‘champagne season’ is finally here – a time to put on a happy face and maybe look forward to the general election – a misnomer if ever there was one. So, pack up your troubles in that old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile. This is still a great place to hang your hat.

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Shafts AGM

Shelly Beach Ski-boat Club held its AGM last Thursday. Membership fees were paid and everyone was signed in. It was probably not ideal to join any club on the day of an AGM, because all those dreary items on the agenda, like minutes, finances, and so on, can drive one to distraction.

‘Help yourself to cakes, cookies and coffee,’ everyone was told, so your scribe casually piled his plate with a couple of dozen goodies and started munching. Even before sitting down, a voice announced: ‘And that concludes the business; I declare the AGM over.’ No time to even get round to the savouries.

Now, that is what a ‘real’ AGM is all about. No points of order; the books balanced and there is money in the bank. Great stuff.

Roly Poly Club

Then it was time for the serious end of the business: good company, light-hearted ‘biographies’ (everyone has a story to tell), and making new friends. It’s getting to the stage of ‘closing the book’ – it’s full. Full of names of new-found friends.

Arriving here four years ago with svelt figures; it is now necessary to become honorary members of the ‘Roly Poly Club’. Still, a new round of social whirls to get through, but there’s no time to get old. Grow old, perhaps, but ‘get old’? No chance.

End of a love affair

Not everything in the garden can be rosy all the time, you would agree. Some good things have to end, albeit with bitter-sweet memories.

Uvongo resident Brian Muir has cherished and driven his classic 1969 MGB GT sports car for more than a quarter of a century.

When he bought the car, it was 25 years old. After his good wife, Joan, and his three daughters, Brian’s MG was his pride and joy.

Lovingly cared for, all spit and polish, he took the car out on weekends to give it a spin along the roads of the Hibiscus Coast. The familiar drone of the MG as it was taken out of the garage was a regular sound around the sleepy suburbs of Uvongo.

Goodbye, old friend

The other day the familiar drone of the MG could be heard reversing from the Muir’s garage. After speaking to Joan, it was revealed that Brian had sold the car and they were delivering it to its new owner in ‘Toti, before it would be driven to Johannesburg. A stalwart member of the local and national MG classic car club, for Brian, it must have been a moment of sadness, but no, not a bit of it.

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He has now acquired a different model sports car – a Mazda MX5 – there’s no stopping the South Coast’s local version of Lewis Hamilton. Or, for readers of a more mature age, perhaps Sterling Moss. ‘You can’t keep a growing lad down’, in this case, the sobriquet is afforded to Our Brian.

Gone In Sixty Seconds

One article in the UK International Express, written by acclaimed author and columnist, Frederick Forsyth, reads “As like many of you, I bounce from pothole to pothole along our English country roads, the thought occurred, why, if they are mended at all, do the repairs last such a short time? They are usually a ‘pot-of-tarmac job’, plonked in a hole, set hard in half an hour; but crumbled to gravel and gone a month later.

Welcome to our ‘potty’ world. And don’t forget to cast your vote! See you, Rob.

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