We've had some weather

1943 AEC Matador in our wintry garden

We've had a bit of weather and the up side is that the snow always makes our small collection of rather rusty vintage vehicles look rather elegant.  This baby will be 70 next year and a re-fit is planned to celebrate.

Father bought 'the Mat' in the late sixties from a Ministry of Defence sale.  She was a gun tractor.  He converted her for timber work and I pretty much grew up with her.  In the early eighties she was in a bit of a sorry state and Dad sold her to a young man he knew who was keen to restore her.  In 1993 this young man took me out on our first date.  We went out as exhibitors at a vintage vehicle show.  She was fifty years old. 
People told him he would never get a girl to go out with him in the Mat.  I'd been going about with my father in the 'Mat' since the age of ten. 

Next year, in 2013 this same young man and I will have been together for twenty years and our 'Mat' will have pretty much been in the same family for forty five years.  We've had other old lorries and cars and sold them on.  The 'Mat' is family.  She stays.