Building up slowly to our run to La Chapelle, and wishing to honour "Drive It" day, I decided to make a small run out from the lock up to Birchington. In bright sunshine, after leading a Bluebell Walk in Challock Forest for the "Friends of Kingswood", therefore I hot footed it to the lock up in the "normal 2CV". The old girl fired up first turn and never missed a beat all day.

We trundled down through Blean to the main road, stopped for fuel at Tesco, and the headed east along the A road towards Herne Bay. From there, there's a quick burst of Thanet Way before the turn off to Birchington. We ambled around stopping to take pics where ever I felt like, and were delighted to find the pub, the Sea View, which is in the 20 year old black and white pic featured on the front of the latest edition of the La Chapelle mag.

It was a shame that I'd not been able to raise anyone on the Twinning Committee to meet me there or get some official pics - surely useful for their website or newsletters?

A small adventure, then, for the first one, and now she's safey tucked up back in the lock-up under her cover. her next excitement is the 2CV London to Brighton (which is gonna take HOURS at max 40 mph!) and then it's the awesome La Chapelle run.  

Prior to our adventure, taking the old girl to La Chapelle (which has been met by great enthusiasm and excitement there, with locals offering us accommodation and saying they'll feed us and take us round), I thought it'd be a nice idea to take the car to Birchington, tomorrow being "Drive-It" day an' all.

What a difference? I have a number of email addresses for Birchington, and have sent them all an email saying would you like to meet the car before the adventure. But came there answer none (aplogies to Lewis Carroll).

Sooooo., Weather permitting, I will go anyway, and get myself some pics of the old girl at the Birchington sign or any other landmark. Might even park her in the town centre and see if anyone comes and says anything.

You'll know that we Restoration Team guys, finding that our old car was a twinning gift from La Chapelle d'Armentieres to Birchington, and the only thing we'd heard about Armentieres was the WW1 Tommy song "Mademoiselle from Armentieres", immediately named the car "Mademoiselle"

I posted on the 2CVGB site at the time (on a blog that sadly died in April 2008 with loss of all hands) a link to a 1920's music hall recording of the song, commenting that the rhymes in the lyric only worked if you were a British Tommy with no knowledge of French "Mademoiselle from Ah-mun-tears, hasn't been kissed for 50 years" etc and similar excruciating references to the "Croy duh Gear" (Croix de Guerre) for washing the General's Underwear, and so on.

Amusingly, as part of our prep for sending a small convoy of Brit-reg'd Citroens to La C d'A in May, we've been sent some tourist guide booklets from Armentieres listing accommodation. In same, there is an article about "Melle from Armentieres" (we've been spelling it Mmle) which I'll translate to the best of my ability.

"On the origins of the song, we have found an anecdote describing a time when an Officer in the English Army tried to make a "familiar gesture" to a waitress in the local cafe, the famous Marie Lecocq, who responded with a clout. An army Sargeant, "Red Rowland" (27 years old), observing the scene, was inspired to pen a few couplets. Mademoiselle from Armentieres symbolises the woman, irreplace-able companion of the man in moments of distress and disarray. At the time Red Rowland wrote just 3 verses - there are now over 120"

There is even a statue of Marie Lecocq in Armentieres, on Avenue Leo Legrange.

Something tells me we are just going to have to see it.  

Good News! We have working electrics. The short story is that the aul' girl spent the day at Square Deal Auto on Chislet Business Park (off the A28) and is now back home safe in her lock up with working electrics. I have no vested interest in Square Deal but can unreservedly reccommend them as a small company (Father and Son) who are just brilliant at diagnosing and fixing electrical problems on old cars.

The longer story would involve 2CV-Llew and I getting the car there under tow when we found her in the lock-up with an almost flat battery (and being tow-roped behind Llew at speed through country lanes and along the Thanet Way is a brown-underpants white knuckle ride). The work was done with a nice sequence of comforting "check up" calls by them to me confirming that this is what they'd found and was it alright to spend x.

Our original bodgerie had , in fact put some of our jointed wiring in the way of the fan, which had sliced through one wire causing a short (metal fan on these old cars) which had melted the voltage regulator. She is now largely re-wired in that area and has a new 6v (old Volkswagen) volt-reg'. The old guy tried to tell me all about negative pulsing and +ve wires from the field wiring connected to the +ve brush which looked all wrong but was in fact correct (see Lindsay Porter book for pics!) but that kind of stuff goes over my head.

And then, with her all fixed and paid for I had the fun of a drive home all down through Sturry and Herne back to Blean, where she lives. 40 mph flat out down the Thanet Way dual carriageway. Zzzzzzzz. Those cars are definitely more fitted to country lanes than motorways, aren't they? At least on the down-hills towards Blean you can look at 50 mph, bucketting over the lumps and bumps and potholes.

So, now we have a car with working electrics, all safe and snug and dry back in her lock up.  Thanks then to 2CV doctor, Llew, who gave up 2 (early) evenings, one to tow me down to Square Deal, one to follow me home then drive me back to Chislet to collect the "normal" car in which I'd driven there from work.

Relax

The old girl goes in tomorrow to an old-car electrics expert in Chislet (Kent village, near(ish) to Grove Ferry and Canterbury). I know these guys are good, but they may not be that familiar with 2CV's specifically, so we've assembled a number of helpful items -

1) Llew, our 2CV doctor who can be on the end of the phone

2) Some pics of the car we took while we had her stripped out.

3) The book "How to Restore a 2CV" by Lindsay Porter, which also has lots of good dynamo pics and

4) A special tool - basically a long thick bolt with an unusual thread, which you wind down the middle of the armature and keep on going till the end strikes the end of the crank, where-upon something's gotta give, and the armature slips neatly (you hope) out of its tapered hole into your hands.....

Watch this space

This the red British phone box given to La Chapelle d'Armentieres as "our" twinning gift, when they gave us the 2CV. It stands next to the new "Mairie" - the Town Hall you can see behind it. It has been vandalised several times and the glass replaced several times, but it currently sits rather forlorn, glass-less and phone-less

We feel we are getting organised. Over the weekend, including a good excuse for a posh Birthday Meal in St Omer, we headed for La Chapelle to meet the main twinning contact (Anne, English, married to Claude) and make plans.

We came away all fired up and inspired, and feircely determined to get the old car over there by hook or by crook (even if we have to trailer her there and back). The towns people are so looking forward to her and to us, that they'll be distraught (and we'd be mortified) if we can not pull it off.

They are asking for a small show of old Citroens, too, so if you know of anyone heading for Northern France on the weekend of the 16th/17th May, please point them in the direction of La Chapelle, near Lille. It's the same weekend as the big 2CV club of Holland meeting in Waggel, so we're thinking plenty of people will be passing through from Calais, and La Chapelle is literally only 100 kms south-east of Calais - good roads too - an hour and a quarter, if that.

It's the 20th Anniversary of the Twinning, so the Carnival will be extra-special. They are lovely people, too - we can vouch for that. More soon