Blog 50 - The Red Lady

Quite amazing, I have written half a century of blogs, so it is quite fitting I finish my trilogy of car blogs with The Red Lady, my present and probably last car. She is a grand old dame, all thirty-three years of her. She is a 1987 BMW red coupe with black canvas tonneau built in South Africa, shipped to Rotterdam where my husband collected her, imported her through Hull and been in my possession since then.

I don’t really have a scarf to do her justice, but this Richard Allan is silk, has a big bold red flower and the requisite hand rolled hems.

You can imagine, a car of this age has seen many adventures but I am writing a blog, not a lengthy novel, so I will recount only one story. We were living in Bayswater and the car was very new and quite desirable. She was housed in the carport of our mews house not far from Queensway. I have to admit to great carelessness now and tell you I did not firmly close the house door, I had left my set of house keys, including the car keys on a salver on the hall table, a thief came by and stole all the keys. My husband was in the West Indies at the time on a business trip and I was a bit miffed at not being invited along. Now, I was panic stricken! I managed to call a locksmith and had the house door locks changed, but what to do about the car? My next door neighbour was an airline pilot, knew about mechanical things, so he somehow dismantled the internal workings so it could not be started with a key. I phoned the police and they said they would keep an eye on the house. I could not sleep so I sat by the first floor window with a replica American gun feeling like Annie Oakley till the small hours of the morning. Half asleep, I saw a vehicle reversing up our narrow mews with blue lights flashing. Good old police checking on me. I felt safe enough now to go to bed. Next morning, I rang the police to thank them. Sorry Ma’am, that wasn’t us. Must have been a pick up truck to tow away your car, when the thieves knew the keys did not work. The mews road was just too narrow for them to complete the manoeuvre. The Red Lady was saved.

Imagine my husband on his return finding his house door keys did not work, the car was disabled .......his wife must be really mad at being left at home whilst he was sunbathing in the Caribbean and had thrown him out!

The Red Lady has been cosseted in a garage ever since these days and I am now the Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator very much involved in local security!

Busy Bee, Scarf Face!

Blog 50.