The day of the Ladies Run dawned fine for our picnic at Wenderholm, the site of the inaugural Ladies Run back in 2021! Ken and I set off in our SL with me at the wheel – it’s the Ladies Run after all! But it wasn’t a great start as the car started beeping when I turned out of the drive – “release the hand brake!” “but I have!” – oops! forgot to put on my seat belt!
We arrived at the Parnell Rose Gardens having navigated the diversion at the bottom of The Strand – hmm! this didn’t bode well for access to the motorway We were among the first to arrive but not early enough to avoid Chris Haliday’s supervision of my parking. We were followed by a beautiful cream 280S, known in her family as “the Duchess”, driven by Celia with her sister Greer.
The cars rolled in, including a Mustang. Deepa and Mike had special dispensation for owning a “cool car”.
After some discussion it seemed we would all follow our own route to get onto the western motorway. Some of us agreed that we would cross the Domain, and head down Grafton. This was not quite as straightforward as expected – there is no right turn into Domain Drive from Parnell Road but it was alright because the boys were making up for not being at the wheel by providing a running commentary by walkie talkie.
We started to “get us a convoy” as we headed up the western motorway and by the time we turned off to Coatesville we had five cars in the convoy. Part way along Spencer joined up and then we were six – as clever, as clever we were then six forever.
Up the toll road, off at Puhoi and back over the hill to Wenderholm where Sue had set up the long table with pretty triples – cup, saucer and plate and cake forks, and Chris Scullin was boiling water for tea and coffee. We unpacked our pretty plates and added our party food. We had a good balance of savoury and sweet, and it all lived up to the high tea theme.
If anyone found the company or conversation not sufficiently stimulating, Finn was on hand with his ball – that dog is not slowing down!
It was great to see some new faces and some old friends. As Janine said a few weeks ago a picnic is a great day out.
Thank you Sue for your great hospitality and organisation, to Debbie and Chris for their support to Sue, and everyone for your company. No incidents to report and we look forward to next year!
Philippa West
Click here to view more photos on our Gallery page – in case anyone is wondering why we are posting aerial shots, Daryl brought his drone camera.
