Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

A Tale of Three Elfs (Elves?)

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‘Mark’ I

I was slow to ‘get’ driving (back in the days when you had a full license the minute you sat your test at age 16). I learned to drive in an E30 Corolla but failed to my test twice. As a consequence l gave up for a bit until I could improve my skill and confidence.

In the end, at age 18 I ended up owning a car before I even had that license. I remember buying her, Mum and I together at the sales yard, parting I think with $1500 and in return receiving papers for ‘Olive’ a 1965 Mk II ‘Riley Elf.’ It was in her I finally passed the driving test, the police officer disparaging the car as soon as he climbed in, commenting along the lines of ‘Wind her up, get her going…’ as if it was a rubber band responsible for her power. The ensuing giggle enough to relax me into a (finally) successful test.

We had adventures Olive and I. Late night phone calls to dad after a rear ender in the rain outside the service station in Victoria Rd necessitated embarrassed collection from town; the now infamous blowout on the Northern Motorway headed downhill on the way to meeting friends at Rainbows End, my 11 year old brother and I trying to get her tyre changed and us moving again lest we miss out on any of the fun. Taking judder bars (speed humps) too fast and getting airborne, or taking corners too tight on the way to the airport and driving over traffic islands. I like to think, now that I am a more experienced driver, these kinds of incidents are a thing of the past. 

Olive and I parted company July of 1988 when I sold her to a friend for $1950.00 and was rather proud to have made money on her. I was young, headed off overseas, a car an encumbrance and cash an important thing when going off into the great beyond. It was a mistake; damn I loved that car and ever since her subsequent owner sold her on to a collector in Japan I have been disappointed I couldn’t buy her back.

I’ve had a dream to own one again ever since.

1965 Riley Elf Mk 2
Olive and me (circa 1986 or 1987)

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‘Mark’ II

‘I’m sorry, I hope you don’t mind but I need to go chat to that guy for a sec’ I said to my friend over coffee one early morning while I was on vacation on the Gold Coast.’ The object of my attention an ‘Elf’ being parked across the road, the first I’d seen in the flesh since I’d sold mine.

I introduced myself to M, her owner and he laughed, every time he takes her out he gets stopped for a chat. He delivered his Mrs to her hair appointment and joined us at the cafe. We spent delightful half hour reminiscing about his early days also spent in NZ, the Elfs (Elves?) and minis he’s owned and the modifications he’s made to ‘Elf’ pictured below.

We stayed in touch. I introduced him to trademe.co.nz and before I could turn around he’d bought two of them, one in good running order that his grandson now owns, the other in pieces that he has since restored and which is currently for sale.

I’ve visited him on the Gold Coast a couple of times and on last visit we took ‘Elf’ (with me driving) off for a jaunt around town, turning heads and (for me) getting inspired to take the idea of getting my own seriously.

Showing off the Alfa Romeo wheel rims
M, her proud owner

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‘Mark’ III

Trade Me is apparently a treasure trove of ‘Elves.’ In the almost 2 years since I met M I’ve been watching them come and go for sale, and the timing has never quite been right for me to indulge this desire to own one again. However, this time as I was preparing to visit family across the ditch I happened to check out the trademe listings for Rileys and noticed that alongside the listing for M’s ‘Snow White‘ was this wee blue specimen which completely caught my eye.

I emailed the vendor to find out what sort of interest there had been in her. He replied lots, which was a bit far fetched as her price had been coming down consistently in the time I was watching… so I kept his details to follow up when I was actually in NZ as well.

I won’t bore you with the intervening details of the story, the end result is of course that after going to sit in her, turn her engine over and, (after some convincing to move the barricade of other classic vehicles in her way) taking her for a drive, the offer was made, accepted and once the finance transferred from Australia to NZ (gosh they can move money fast when they want to, it took less than 24hrs) she has become my very own.

I can scarcely believe it… I own another Elf and the number one slot on my bucket list is vacant.

Currently she is in storage in Auckland until such a time as I can get her transported over to Melbourne. I have some travel planned between now and when collecting her is going to be feasible, so for now she’s tucked away safely in a storage unit until I can bring her home.

She needs a name. I want to call her Elfaba (after Elphaba the witch in Wicked) but honestly her colour lends itself more to ‘Smurfette’ which I can’t bring myself to commit to yet. So, I’ll save the formal christening until she’s here and we’ve had time to get acquainted…

Until then, I shall flick through the photos below and count my blessings the opportunity to undo a big regret didn’t pass me by.

With her garage mates
998cc engine
Riley Elf Mk III Walnut veneer dashboard
The red leather interior could use some work
Riley Elf Mk III red leather interior
Riley Elf Mk III brand new paint job
Riley Elf Mk III Mini with a Boot
Riley Elf Mk III New paint, new chrome

A Funny thing Happened on the Way to a Meeting

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There are things that happen that in life are so out of the ‘norm’ that you really have to document them before they disappear into the vortex that is your past; ephemeral and on the edge of your memory, almost as if they were way to weird to have been true.  This has been one of those moments…

I flew from Melbourne to Sydney on Wednesday. It was uneventful at that time, but I should already have been in New South Wales that day, having had my flight cancelled the evening before due to unseasonable (and frankly, unreasonable) fog.  Given that I was meant to be in a meeting at 10am and didn’t actually touch down in Sydney till 12.30 I ended up with a couple of hours to kill before the rescheduled meeting could occur at 2.30. (There’s the context, it’s probably too much detail really, but to perserve my memory, there it is.)

I went to Starbucks to wait. (I KNOW, sorry, it really was awful, the coffee is ghastly, and I still can’t believe there were as many people in there as there were.  But hey, free wifi.)

So, I unpacked the laptop for half an hour to get a bit of prep done for the meeting and as I worked, was generally in my own little world as I usually am when I’m head down over the computer. (Stay with me, it’s about to get good).

When I was done with what I needed to do, I started to pack up my kit ready to head around the corner to my meeting and as I did, I was approached from the left by a not unattractive guy who said, “I just had to stop and tell you, you’re stunning!”

My internal reaction was… “Is he trying to distract me, do I now need to go and change all my passwords, is he standing here cloning my laptop, is my wallet safe, did I log into anything that needs protecting while I was on open wifi?” and so on.  What I did, of course, so as not to appear rude, and so as to ‘live in the moment’, was reach out my hand to shake his and say, “Hi, I’m Dee, nice to meet you.”

We chatted a bit, and while I wasn’t in a big hurry I was mindful of time, so he asked where I was off to. I told him, and before we moved away he wrote down his number for me on a discarded receipt. I, again in the moment, wrote down my web site’s address so he could find me if he wished.

As I moved away, he asked if he could walk me to where I was going, I assented, and we chatted  companionably along the way, and when we got near my destination, we said goodbye and he going one way while I the other, I walked up the street to the office rather bemused by what had just occurred.

I conducted my meeting, travelled across town to my destination for the evening, stopped to catch up with my host and have a good laugh about the events of the day, and then checked my email to find that he’d reached out through my website to connect almost as soon has he’d got back to the office!

The events of the next couple of days unfolded slowly, I have had the busiest time on this trip, going from north to south and back again across Sydney, (if you’ve spent ANY time here at all you’ll know that doing so is never a straightforward thing), and in the end when we did try to co-ordinate a meeting, the planets and our timetables just didn’t align.  The scheduling discussion then devolved into a long and completely flattering text conversation that left me feeling both delighted, if a little sceptical.

In the days since there’s been no ensuing contact, just in case you were wondering if this was going to turn into a scene from one of those hopelessly romantic movies.  I am now back in Victoria with a cracking story and a saucy text conversation to look back on to remind me that such things actually can happen from time to time.

The whole situation got me to thinking about what exactly IS the norm?  This brief exchange has certainly been outside my norms. Having spent so many years inside a culture where such a thing never occurs it’s been a refreshing experience.  But I’m curious to hear from my readers, particularly those who don’t live in an insulated (i.e. religious) culture; if you have one, what’s your outrageous pickup story? And, for those of us playing along at home, how did it end?

Picture This – why I gave up on Instagram

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I’ve been watching all the furore over Instagram’s change of terms and conditions with interest, and as usual, there are two sides to the story, and yet people get all energised and a whole flurry of “OMGs” and “WTFs” erupt in my timeline (be it Twitter or Facebook or even my email account).

Here’s the thing.

We are posting our pictures in public. We have to give Instagram permission to display them, and given that it’s a social tool and connects by API (blah blah, tech junk, etc.) to other services, for proper legal standing those images need to be permitted on other forums.

Sometimes those forums will have ads.

One day Instagram will have ads.

It’s the way these things go. We get all excited about a new service, website, app etc., we all jump on board and get hooked on it.

Then it has to pay for itself.

Realistically the terms and conditions need to align with Facebook (remember? Instagram is owned by Facebook), and frankly, those pix that you put on Facebook are covered with the same terms and conditions, if I read things correctly. Are you careful about your photos on Facebook? Have you jumped ship from Facebook because of THEIR terms and conditions?

No, neither have I. I’ve thought about it, but I find the service too useful to do away with, and frankly I’ve got all sorts of tech malarkey going on in the background to strip ads so I never see them anyway.

I’m the kind of user Facebook hates.

That said, I’m still ditching Instagram, but it’s not about the terms and conditions. It’s because, quite frankly, the app doesn’t, for a second, compare to the flickr one.

I’ve been a flickr user for YEARS and had got out of the habit of posting pix on it, because, if I’m honest, I got out of the habit of taking pictures. I fell out of love with my big old clunky D100 and don’t really love the picture quality of my iPhone 4 so I’ve really only been farting about with occasional cat or lunch picture on Instagram.

Instagram has dumbed me down. Big time. (This isn’t a reflection of any one else on Instagram, it’s just me. Promise.)

In any case. My Instagram pix no longer show up on Twitter, the app interface doesn’t do what I want (seriously, I can’t see your photo stream? I have to keep going back to the thumbnails to see all your pix? Back… forth… back… forth = irritating).

Fortunately Flickr has lifted its game in the biggest way with their iPhone app. I can filter pix, my images aren’t cropped arbitrarily, I can see your photostream, I can post them to Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr and I can also do way more editing of my pix, can tag them and can make them publicly available for use on MY terms, given all my pix are out there with Creative Commons Licensing. (Edited to add, and because I [happily] pay annually to use it, ads aren’t an issue, at least not now… hopefully, never!)

The only thing that kept me coming back to Instagram was the validation from all your likes and comments, and if I’m sticking with a substandard product just for your validation?

Well, that’s just silly.

There you have it, I’m quitting Instagram. I’ll miss you, but if we’re friends I’ll see your stuff on Facebook anyway, right?

And if you’re an iPhone user, I challenge you to check out the Flickr app (yes, you’ll need a flickr account) and if you like it you can follow me and maintain my validation levels on my Flickr pix (or, you know on Facebook and Twitter and all those other places I play on the web.)

Sounds different

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It sounds different here… over and above the usual hum of traffic there are unusual noises… the rush of a tram as it whooshes past my home, the ding ding it sounds as it’s stopping to pick up and put down its passengers. I won’t lie, I totally love it, and I wonder how long it is before the novelty wears off, how long it is before I cease to smile as another one goes past.

I’m loving the whump of the gas as it lights up ready at once to be at my beck and call. It’s such a relief to hear the increasing volume of the sizzle as it responds immediately to the turning up of the flow. I’ve wanted to get used to that sound for a long time. I wonder too how long it is before that stops making me smile, before cooking with gas becomes routine.

There’s another favourite, a muffled sound (when you’re hearing it from inside the car), the drone of the garage door responding to the press of its button. This is music to one’s ears after years of parking ‘Dolly’ in the street. No sharing this car space it’s all ours, hers and mine, and the sound of that whirr muffled even further by rain? Sweeter still.

Finally, a cheery Kiwi greeting meets me outside my back door. Neighbours who are fully clothed I’m pleased to advise and who are transplanted also from across the ditch have made me feel incredibly welcome. An elderly couple, and rugby fans. I’m already invited to come and watch the next All Blacks match with them. There will be beer drunk to boot I suspect.

Sounds good to me.