May Day Fun

I think it's fair to say Spring has officially Sprung. We have flowers exploding all over the garden, the sun is shining, my grass seed is growing (in spite of the best efforts of the the local pigeon population), I haven't worn my winter coat for a week or two now and haven't needed to. Even the lazy, good-for-nothing cat (who has utterly failed to prevent avian seed theft) has ventured in to the garden temporarily, if only to uproot some carefully tended bulbs. At least he did a little of his molting outside for once!

So this Bank Holiday weekend the Lotus took a spin over to Derbyshire for a stag do. It was the first time I'd driven it since it was worked on over the Winter - in fact, the first time in months - so I was very glad to give it a good 100 miles on the clock to see how things feel.

Firstly, it starts like an absolute dream with the new starter motor! I am extremely pleased I no longer have to spend half an hour with a pair of jump-leads trying to coax and tease it in to life every time I want to go anywhere. It's a vast improvement.

Once going, I think it runs a bit leaner, but when you get to 3,000 RPM and put your foot to the floor it leaps in to life with impressive vigour. Nipping by people in 4th was definitely easier now the twin Delorto carbs have been cleaned and tuned.

The only remaining (or rather, newly developed) problem is the clutch master cylinder seems to be doing something funny. The clutch simply disappears temporarily. I need to get that fixed before we go to France in June, but it's not a big job. More expense.

Saturday will be busy. Weather permitting, we're off the Italian Cars Day at the legendary Ace Café on London's North Circular road. I'm also replacing the runabout. I've seen a nice Ford Escort Estate I want to look at either this evening or tomorrow, if the chap still has it. I'm fed up of driving around in a battered, noisy old Citroen AX!