Sometimes, on a weekend, you’re torn between sleeping in and getting up early to do something fun.

I mean early like 6 am. Sometimes a lot earlier, like if you had to catch the 5 am train to London so as to maximise your time there.

But it was for 6 am on Sunday when I sacrificed sleep in the name of adventure. Not adventure in the traditional sense of the word, but more in terms of interesting and fun.

Sunday, I agreed to visit the home of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars in the prestigious estate of Goodwood because its doors rarely open for the public.

It wasn’t just about getting a peek inside the factory that produces the most expensive luxury cars in the world, it was also about getting together with hundreds of sports cars and their owners, who would congregate on the massive grounds of Goodwood.

Sounded like fun.

We left home at 7:20 am to meet up with Piers’ cousin, Simon, who drives a red Ferrari 355 Spider, and Simon’s friend, Badger, who drives a TVR Griffith 500.

Here are their three cars parked side by side in Goodwood. (There’s Olive in the middle.)

It was fun driving there together, a journey that took a bit over an hour even with a lot of speed bursts on the highway. By the time we arrived, there was a line forming outside the gates because each car had to be checked against the invite list.

This event was organised by PistonHeads, a leading automotive website in the UK with a huge online community, and 400 cars were given a pass to the event, called the Rolls-Royce Sunday Service.

All PistonHeads events and meets are called Sunday Service, apparently, although I don’t know why because it just makes me think of church.

Anyway, the morning went something like this: Arrive at Goodwood and park. Drool at everyone else’s beautiful sports cars. Have breakfast. Play around with the few Rolls-Royces displayed on the grounds. Drool at more cars. Tour the Rolls-Royce factory. Go back out to drool at yet more cars.

Not an epic adventure but quite good fun.

Photography isn’t allowed inside the actual manufacturing plant but, well, they look just like the insides of manufacturing plants, so you can imagine for yourself.

We learnt interesting bits of trivia, like how clients would fly all the way to the premises to look at their cars. Some rich guy had visited the plant regularly for a year to witness his Rolls-Royce being built from scratch.

I didn’t know that Rolls-Royce made convertibles. They’re gorgeous.

Here’s one.

A very very old one. LOL.

Okay, I’m going to stop yabbering and do photos now.

Loads and loads of cars!

We were done by 11 am, so that’s when we left the premises, although the gates would only close at 1 pm.

It was interesting, the event, certainly worthy of sacrificing my sleep-in.

Today is my birthday and also the second anniversary of the day I first knew of Piers’ existence.

Two years ago today, Piers decided to drop me a Facebook message after reading my blog for a couple of weeks. He really enjoyed my writings so decided to show his appreciation by letting me know. (I think my writings were less bimbotic, then. :P)

He didn’t know it was my birthday when he sent me that message because I didn’t have my birthday listed on Facebook then.

And I didn’t even remember it until we got together this February and I went back to look at the message and saw that it had come on my birthday.

There’s a funny little story about how he chanced upon my blog in the first place, but I’ll leave that story for another day.

I thought his message was quite funny and sincere, so I gave him a thank-you reply. After a couple more funny back and forths, we stopped conversing and he joined Plurk.

I think he was more active in Plurk than I was, haha. Anyway, we were never really close or anything, just regular Plurk friends like everyone else.

Well, then, a year and a half later, you already know that story, I came to England and we made our history.

Okay, one day I will tell the full story but I have to go now because there’s the rest of my birthday to enjoy.

The weather is great today. =)

I’m back in England for the third time now and it’s only been five months since my first trip.

It’s strange musing upon how life had taken a surprise drastic turn five months back and now I’m treading a completely unexpected path with a completely unexpected significant other.

Fate sometimes does the right thing by you, just when you think all is lost.

It was a cold and rainy day when I arrived last Saturday morning, even though it’s summer now, so we spent the whole day indoors, catching up with each other.

But we went out the next day because Piers couldn’t wait to show me Olive, who was at his parents’ house.

We’ve decided to name his TVR Tuscan Olive because she reflects different colours depending on lighting conditions. Sometimes she’s black, sometimes green, sometimes purple, all the colours of olives.

And also because we both love eating olives.

You can see me in the reflection!

She does look a bit nicer in real life than in photos.

Anyway, I only brought light summer clothes with me this time, since it’s summer. But it seems like I’ve been cheated again.

The last time I came in May, I also only brought summer clothes because it was warm and nice the two weeks leading up to my arrival.

But the moment I arrived, it turned cold again. Luckily, I had left a few warm things in England.

This time was the same! The temperature had been in the mid to late 20s for the last two weeks but the very day I arrived was the day it dipped to 17 and that’s going to last for at least a week.

It was the same case in February when I first came. Shit weather when I arrived, ending a spell of relatively good weather for winter.

AND, the last two trips, the weather immediately turned better after I left.

I think I’m a weather jinx.

Piers says it rains more when I’m here because England is crying with happiness at my presence.

Haha.

I wore this on Sunday and it was quite okay except when the wind blew.

The temperature is around 15°C to 19°C in the day this week, which is like a cold aircon room. But when the wind blows, it becomes like 10°C and I want to die.

We went to Swan Lake to feed the swans after picking up Olive but the wind was blowing something strong so I was hiding in Olive most of the time while I watched Piers feed the seagulls.

He prefers feeding the seagulls because he’s impressed with their beak-eye coordination. He throws a pinch of bread up in the air and they almost always catch it mid-air.

But I did feed the swans before I had to give the rest of the bread to Piers and run off to hide in Olive.

We fed the birds a whole fresh multi-grain baguette this time because it had come with my tomato soup at lunch and I didn’t feel like eating it because the grains hurt my teeth.

Yeah, I think I can look forward to having hurty teeth periodically till I’m all done with my Invisalign treatment.

By the way, on a separate note, don’t believe in those chicken-crossing-the-road jokes. They don’t cross roads all that much. The only fowls that cross roads are ducks and geese.

Have you ever seen a chicken cross a road?

There you go.

When I arrived in England on Saturday, the first thing Piers showed me was an episode of Top Gear where host Jeremy Clarkson was test-driving a featured car and almost ran over a family of ducks crossing the road.

It was very cute, a mother duck with six or so little ducklings following her in a line, crossing the road in a rather relaxed manner.

He stepped on the brakes and swerved just in time to avoid them, startling them a little. But ducks are very resilient. They got over their scare in just a second and continued waddling calmly to the other side.

I wonder why duck families always only have one mother and her kids. Where’s the father? Is it an animal’s destiny to grow up without a father?

I didn’t get to see a mummy duck and her baby ducks cross the road (I hope I do one day) but I did see a gaggle of geese cross the road at Poole Park, where we were feeding the swans.

Traffic had to stop for them because they were taking their own sweet time and some of them even broke rank to explore the road instead of cross it.

No babies, though. So disappointing.

Anyway, I might be here for three months this time if there are no pressing commitments I need to be back in Singapore for before then.

Will have more to blog about soon because I’m planning to do a lot of fun things here!

Weather permitting.

-_-

Four more days until I leave for England again, so much to do before I go, and I’m addicted to K-drama, courtesy of the Goonfather, who passed me five series to watch.

I told myself I would just watch one episode to see if the series is good enough to put in my iPad for my long plane journey. (My iPad only has space for about eight episodes so have to be very choosy.)

But have you watched Korean dramas, especially top rated ones? You can’t stop, even if they’re annoying at times when old people start yelling at each other.

I just started watching 49 Days, about a sweet young thing who gets into an accident just days before her wedding and lapses into a coma. To prove that she is worthy of coming back to life, she has to collect three genuine tear drops from people who love her, within 49 days, the catch being that they can’t be family members.

I don’t watch a lot of TV (I spend more time on games) but when I do watch a series, I have an inclination to get obsessive-compulsive about it.

Which explains why I was able to watch the entire first season of 24 in 27 hours. It was actually my second viewing. I was watching it with Piers, who had never watched the series before.

I think Piers is as OC as me. We have the same kind of disorder whereby, when we play a game, say, Angry Birds, we’ll play levels repeatedly until we vomit just so we can get three stars every level.

I don’t play Angry Birds but Piers does. My latest project is Slice It. Must get five stars and perfect for every stage. Have done Episode 1, working on Episode 2, but K-dramas are distracting me.

One of the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder is having a compulsion to make lists and schedules.

That’s me. I always something going on, a list or log or something.

When I told Piers that I’m keeping a log of the minutes I spend each day not wearing my Invisalign aligners, he laughed and said I was crazy.

I don’t see why! I think it helps me better gauge when I can change a new set of aligners.

But maybe I’m one of the few people in the world who would actually do a thing like that. Wonder what Dr Poon will say to that when I see her on Thursday. Haven’t seen her since I got my first set of aligners about two weeks ago.

After every meal, I jot down in my iPad the number of minutes I’ve had my aligners off.

It encourages me to spend less time eating every day so I can have loads of impressive low numbers in my spreadsheet cells.

So far, on average, I have worn my aligners for 22.5 hours each day, more than the recommended 20-22 hours!

So proud of myself.

Not sure I can keep it up, though, cos when I’m in England (FOUR DAYS’ TIME!!!) I should be spending a lot of time eating because Piers said one of the things he likes about me is my gluttony.

I should be so flattered?

Here’s a post about Piers washing his car. It’s very entertaining for me to take photos of him while he’s hard at work.

He usually takes his car to the automatic car wash but it’s hay fever season now and the trees in his car park are raining down pollen and leaves on a daily basis, making it stupid to spend £5 to wash it only to have it coated in gunk again the very next day.

Sometimes he gets a tree-free parking lot and his car is safe. But sometimes he doesn’t.

Sometimes the car gets only leaves, which is not so bad because they blow off. But sometimes it gets wind-and-rain-resistant pollen and the whole darn thing turns yellow.

(Sorry, don’t have a photo of the pollen version.)

So, we’d been driving around in a yellow car for almost a month before he finally got tired of it and decided to take the car to the DIY car wash, which he’d never used before and always wanted to try.

It’s a lot cheaper and looks somewhat fun. You put £1 in a machine and it gives you whatever you want, out of two hoses (shampoo, foam, wax, water, etc), for something like two minutes.

If you’re not done by the time it runs out, you put more money in. Piers completed his wash in under £2.

It was really funny because he was trying to do it as fast as possible, and I wasn’t helping by hopping around to take photos from different angles while at the same time trying to avoid the foam and water splashing off the car.

Well, I helped by occasionally shouting out the time remaining, to keep Piers on the ball.

Foaming up the car:

Spray rinsing it:

It looked like he enjoyed it and might do it again.

The next day, when we drove back from the supermarket and he couldn’t get a tree-free parking lot, he started grumbling about the pollen situation again.

So I said, “You get to go to the DIY wash again.”

He didn’t say anything but maybe his eyes lit up a bit.