Nickie's Big Birthday Bus

Yesterday was all about Steve's wife and Louise's mother Nickie, who celebrates her 50th birthday tomorrow.

The family had arranged for a party to be held at a venue in Eastleigh and, as a surprise, arranged for V12 to transport her and her family from their house to the venue.

So Jamie used V12 for the first part of duty 101 (0753 - 1135) then brought it off with him when he came off for his break ([geek] 02, which had been spare, went on in its place - actually for the 1120, with Matt keeping W558 for both parts of 101 [/geek])

We then met Steve and Louise (and also my mum who is down for a long weekend), took V12 round to the yard and washed and decorated it.

This meant that V12 had to stay off for the afternoon, so sod's law dictated that a car would now break down in the middle of Botley and cause traffic chaos.

[geek]This resulted in 309 making an appearance on the 1350 E-B-E, 384 dropping back to the 1420 E-B-E with Taz driving to allow Maria to take her break, and 02 dropping back an hour to take over from 309 on the 1520.[/geek]

I did the 1650 from Eastleigh to allow Jamie to get off early to help with the party preparations, and after fuelling the buses turned up at the appointed place to pick up the party-goers - having first run through the bus station to show off to all the waiting buses and passengers - only to find a grand total of zero buses and 2 members of the public sat on benches looking bored! (and pretty unimpressed by the big purple party bus!)

The evening was first class, huge fun! Well done to all the family and friends who put it all together, especially Louise who did a magnificent job as chief organiser!

The all-action weekend now continues with me and some others from work off to see Voulez-Vous - The Abba Story at the Mayflower Theatre in a bit, can't wait! :-)