Christmas Charity Run

It's that time of year where thoughts turn to Christmas and the joys of performing charitable works such as helping the impoverished economies of the EURopean pesO (aka Euro). It's important to do this in a way that our poorer neighbours don't lose face, so rather than making direct donations or collecting second-hand clothes, the best way is to exchange some of our Valuable Sterling Pounds into pesos and spend the money locally for the benefit of the community.

Of course we could buy French bread but it goes stale rather quickly and you need to buy lorry-loads to achieve the size of donation. Rather than bog down the deteriorating roads with lorries we decided to take Z3s and smaller vehicles and buy higher-value items.

Like wine.

So our Angels of Mercy convoy to Northern France in November consisted of Tim/Vicky and Mandy in Z3s, Tom/Di in a Punto and Irene/Alex in a Polo. The talkabouts used for inter-car communications were very useful and on the way, Tim showed Mandy how to spin the wheels on an auto Z3 for fastest take-off.

We booked with SeaFrance (to help fund the aging French martime fleet) and were heading for the 9.30 Dover-Calais ferry.when Mandy realised on out outskirts of Dover that she needed some of the Valuable Sterling Pounds to distribute. Mandy obviously had several cheque books with her, "I need a bank. Any bank will do."

Mandy must have been the 100,000th customer that year for as she left, the bank sounded its bells in her honour. She was obviously cold for she was wearing her balaclava and despite experimenting with burning rubber on the way to the ferry, we still arrived late and had to make the next crossing.

Mandy explained to the bemused French crew that 'blagging' is an English word for charitable giving, and the sawn-off shotguns were for the 'foolish French bovines.' (Ed: I think she meant Mad Cows)

Irene/Alex had taken the earlier crossing and were helping Tom/Di donate some of the Valuable Sterling Pounds to the local diesel station. We collected everyone together and went for a little cruise down the coast to watch the ferries.

Note the background--ferries full of other charitable givers on their way to the peso-zone

We came across a restaurant that had seen better days and decided it would be a good place to make further charatible acts. The food was jummy and very fresh--Irene's crab salad started walking across the plate to rub noses with her. But time was flying and we had yet to make our major donation--to the French branch of Tesco's.

Mandy had changed into a very fetching Tesco's uniform for this and was 'delighted' to find that her Tesco's discount card wasn't accepted in France and thus was able to give even more of the Valuable Sterling Pounds to the local natives.

After filling the 'Zeds and Sheds' to the gunnels, we drove back to the port only to find that starving French dock workers had blockaded the mercy convoys to prevent them from leaving with any unspent Valuable Sterling Pounds. Obviously embarassed at the spread of the 'malad Française', the SeaFrance skraelings were able to make Mandy's worse nightmare come true by transferring our ferry booking to the Channel Tunnel. This was to be Mandy's first underwater crossing!

Irene/Vicky led the aid convoy through passport control and on to the train followed by Tom/Di, Tim/Alex and Mandy. Just as Tom was about to follow Irene, the gate came down, leaving Tom at the head of the queue for the following train. Tom widely blessed the French peasants and was only consoled by the thought that he was left with the faster group.

Fortunately the tunnel was quite waterproof that night

Tim/Alex and Mandy had an exhilarating drive back to Eastbourne through pouring rain on winding deserted country roads with the occasional mini flood to keep things hairy. That only left unpacking the wine.

Contrary to earlier postings it is possible to get 66 bottles of wine in the Z3 boot

Tim Cullis