Blonde's Like Spanners Too... Or, how did I stumble across this wonderland of all things I.C.E and noisy!

Sunday 28/05/2023…

“The day after I turned 46, The introduction, Scribbles or some similar title”…

Morning chaps and "Chapesses" I'm Belle, part of the irregularly greased yet somehow fast rolling team that is Classiccoachworks.org and APPARENTLY.... That's unusual as I'm missing something generally found in/on vehicle restorers/ assemblers/ mechanics /general workshop peoples (I'll give you a clue, its not a spanner) yup, I'm essentially female, although many would argue otherwise! 

We are nothing special really, just a small family business that plays with cars.

We rebody BMW z3's into very pretty 60's style classics, build and refurbishes kit cars, play with normal cars, buy, sell, invent and generally muddle our way through various dirty old engines, bits of fibreglass and some very very cool cars.

 You name it, we try it. Sometimes fail but on the whole, we do ok.  its a bit  more complicated than that but ill explain more later.

I am most definitely not a professional blogger, my typing is way too fast, I don't spell check, I use sentences that are usually far too big for the context, I'm overly verbose, I cant sit still, unless I'm off my feet with various weird wonderful and mainly very annoying bodily misfunctions (which is a lot in the  winter but less so in the warmer climes... Partly exacerbated by not sitting still!)

I like to make sure everyone's smiling, don't take myself too seriously and am happy to poke fun at myself. Well that's what I'm told anyway, always weird to hear an unknown type about themselves, even weirder to type it....

O, and my language is rather colourful at times... Hence not minding my nickname of "Bellend" (as well as the clean version "Blondie")

Don't particularly like talking about myself but, I have recently been made aware that females still face huge prejudice in the automotive industry, that there are far too few of us and we can't have that!  I'm told by some wonderful people along the way that us spanner birds can help that if we are made visible, more so than we currently are.

So, I'm here to embarrass myself (and of course my family hopefully make people laugh (with me or at me, I don't mind!), by my random scrawling's.

Should one female follow me into this industry in any guise, I will have made a difference, cant get better than that really so here goes (IF you're not asleep yet)

It started out as a hobby, as these things often do. Or perhaps it started out as an obsession with all things gas fuelled and noisy, memories from youth, the smell and roar as I clung onto my late fathers waist on one of his many bikes roaring round the M25 and country roads at breakneck speed (safety awareness has moved on since the 80's and 90's!) as a very young girl, the Landrover we had with leaf springs that all but destroyed my our backs! Or hysterically (at the time and in several family gatherings since where the story was relayed and grew, as these things do, with time)  my wonderful sister Dawn standing up then falling spectacularly on her bum on the flip up seats of the  black cab we had (with a yellow roof no less!) as a family with 4 children simply couldn't have a normal car safely back in the days before the wonder that is the people carrier.

As you can imagine, with such vehicles we were often the butt of the bullies jokes at catholic school, but, thanks to my fathers do it attitude and mum and dads brilliant work ethics in sometimes tough times, we ALWAYS had a car, even a caravan and boat too. We were pretty blessed, even if I didn't realise that at the time.

Often, the engines would be in bits with me as a willing (perhaps a little ham-fisted)  volunteer to help dad.

And there in the large metal shed dad shared with our goat "Sally" in the large pretty immaculately kept garden of a lovely old 4 bed old council property in Hampshire began my obsession with all things ICE.

Fast forward 30 odd years, 3 children, lots of health issues, some utterly dreadful experiences and many more wonderful ones, and Cars of many types are a huge part of my life. Often much to the bemusement and frustration of my long suffering family and friends who tolerate very well my inability to sit still, focus, remember plans, keep up with housework like I used to but to the great benefit of myself as finally, I fit in somewhere. Not a bad place to be either.

Having convinced myself for so many years I can't do certain things due to many health problems, and discrepancies between how others see me and how I see myself I am now fortunate enough to have been thrown into a world of beautiful petrol (and occasionally diesel) fired ICE beauties, and I really love it.

SO, as ive probably covered the basics (serious, daft, explanatory and humorous) I'll leave you there, before you get too bored as apparently, this blog lark has to be an ongoing thing... I have no idea what to write next!

Belle. (Blondie/Bellend)

Classicccoachworks.org