Annual Solstice Run - 21st June

Popular as ever, this year's Solstice Run attracted no fewer than twenty five MG's which assembled at the Bellfield Car park in Banchory for a 17:30 start.

Ably organised once again by John & Jill Chessor, the run of around 65 miles lasted for just over two hours.

Initially heading south-east to Stonehaven, we then headed south passing by The Autolounge which we had visited on our Warm Up run before turning north west, pausing for our traditional Cairn O'Mount photo shoot. There were some cryptic clues to be solved en-route so the navigators / passengers had plenty to keep them occupied.  This year the clues were quite tricky and none of the entrants managed to get all the answers, but Richard and Dorothy Burke eventually emerged victorious.

Seemingly it was not a good day for 'Jims', as both of our 'Jims' suffered mechanical maladies on the event.   Firstly Jim Skinner suffered fuel starvation with his MGB GT and having sorted that, he then encountered a binding rear brake.  Meanwhile, Jim Sellens, on his birthday no less and in his trusty Midget, was seen heading off route in a cloud of smoke as he and Harriett headed home with a suspected head gasket failure.  They managed to limp home it home and headed back to the Broadstraik Inn in Westhill in their daily driver,  arriving for the evening meal around the same time as the starters so luckily they didn't miss much! (Post script - on investigation, Jim found that it was not the head gasket, but the car had mysteriously lost its coolant somewhere and had simply overheated.  A quick top-up with water / anti freeze and thankfully all was well.) 

A big thanks to all who turned out for a good catch-up and a big thanks to John and Jill for a fabulous evening.

Thanks too to Anita, Phil and John for providing some of the photos below.