Since I will be in the UK with my girlfriend and our baby daughter, I would like to suggest a late afternoon / evening meeting with some food included in the region mentioned. We will be staying in the Holiday Express Lichfield.

I'm not familiar with the region, but I'm sure someone will come up with a suggestion for an evening meal - inexpensive and family friendly.

We're on a relaxing holiday (dropping the car off for some work) so we're not too fussy about timing, for all we care we start with an aperitive around 16:00.

If you're from around the area, would be nice to meet you!!

So then... Anyone?

Not sure what time they open but there's a great Indian restaurant called the Lodge which is 10 minutes from that hotel, it's on the A5127 at Shenstone woodend.

I'd love to come along but I know I'll be busy

Definitely up for a bite and a beer - would need to be early evening though - perhaps 6:30 - 7:00

Will see if I can make it as itwill be nice to see you again KJ!

But then again... Will I turn up?? Or will I be late??

Who knows ??

Well you better bring those gold plated horns you promised! Would be good to finally see that respray in the flesh.

Nigel, sounds perfect, I'm sure whenever we start, we will be longing for some food around that time exactly. So 18:30 / 19:00 for eaters then. Time set. Loction-wise, Indian sounds pretty good but the missus she not like. I personally also detest the soap named coriander.

Joe, what do you mean 'busy'?

So then... Nigel and Marco. Will be familiar faces and a pretty small meeting for the 'travel effort' of those involved. Surely I've seen some others that live around the area as well? *cough*

I would love to meet up but my oldest daughter is due to deliver me a grandchild soon.
As she lives in Cornwall I'll have to confirm my attendance nearer the time.
Tim

come on people...

its got to be worth it for a nice cosy meet up north..

hell, im willing to do the 1hour + drive up there to see KJ, after all, he is doing a 8hour + drive to come see us!

get involed people.

School holidays unfortunately stop me from coming along. Must me more midlands based locals though?

PS - love the "up north" comment Marco

I wi try and pop along if possible,if I can get away frm work and finish my packing for my hols fri.

c'mon peeps

There must be some more Midlands Coopsters that fancy a nice evening out next Thursday

Lichfield is only half an hour (max) from Birmingham

Go on, you know you want to...

I've managed to get the night off work so ill be there.

I'm up for it, but it would be nice to have a destination... Klaas, I'll have your widget.

For food we will meet around 18:00 at Frankie & Benny's, nearby the Holiday Inn in Lichfield. Address and map:

http://www.frankieandbennys.com/restaurant/frankie-bennys-98

Afterwards we can move to a pub nearby for just a drink.

Ta. See you there.

I'm in ...should be fine...but as an additional suggestion
The almanack in kenilworth is hard to best and the
Location is better for a
Lot of folk?
35 minutes from
Lichfield...I can bring the family then and I'm sure nello would pop up maybe gjh too
But I'm open to ideas

It dawned on me earlier that this is where we held our AGM last year

I'm trying to get a few hours off work so I can make this. Unfortunately getting hours off in August is a nightmare

Im out unfortunately,enrolling at college on that night and flying to Canada the following morning..Sure plenty of friendly faces will turn up.safe journey.

Can't make it unfortunately ... I'm away that day

Have a great evening out everyone

i cant make it, im back at the hospital that day.

sorry KJ...

Due to missus and daughter, we will keep as close to te hotel as possible. If either one needs urgent sleep, I can stay or drop them off instantly.

In which case, can I suggest either...

The Bowling Green in Lichfield - about 2 miles from the hotel

or

The Swan at Fradley - about 5 miles from the hotel

The Swan is where 20+ Coopsters retire for lunch when we're running the Curborough trackday

Both pubs have outside seating areas which would be very nice on a warm summer evening - let's hope for good weather

What's it to be then?

The weather is looking pretty awful, so the Bowling Green is probably going to be a better bet - we'll probably make up our mind on the day

After dinner I suggest we go to the Bowling Green then. Timing from/until unknown - we'll just follow our own rhythm.

If I have my car back, I will try and attend, but it isnt looking promising as the garage wont be starting work on her until tomorrow and unless Fiat have the parts in stock... (gear linkage and CV joint)

Nigel, if I do make it, I would appreciate you taking a look at my misfire issue.

Is this likely to be a fairly regular meeting point in future, as the location is doable for me even on a school night. I would imagine the venue has a fairly large catchment area.

Not really a regular meeting - it's just that Kayjey (the forum founder) is over from Belgium for a couple of days and a few local members are meeting up for a bite to eat

I'll make sure I bring my code reader - happy to spend a bit of time trying to locate the issue

Thanks Nigel, as I say, if I make it then your help will be appreciated, but I am not holding out a great deal of hope if I am honest.

Would be nice to make another meet in the near future though, subject to the car behaving herself for more than one outing!

Come to Belgium!

Anyways, I'm off to bed. If anyone needs to contact me, err... telepathy would be great. Otherwise, my personal contact details are on my business website. Should you really need me, you'll find it.

See (some of) you guys the 11th!

PS - don't forget!! It's my missus' birthday that day, so do wish her an extremely good one!

Hmmmm, leave Sheffield at 4.30, catch a ferry from Hull at 7, with you by about 10, quick beer and a chat, back to the port for midnight, overnight crossing, home by 9 am back in work for 10... Tempting!

Pass on birthday wishes to Mrs KJ if I dont make it (unfortunately I think this will be the most likely outcome ).

Surely its up to you to give

will be along riots permitting - had to send 200 people home form the offices on Broad Street in Birmingham today early....

Joy - we'll be staying far away from any city centers.

Just our luck. Last time it was the snow that got us, now it's riots. To be honest, I'm not that comfortable with it all...

Should be safe enough in Lichfield Kayjey.
Hope you guys in and around Birmingham (any other city experiencing riots for that matter) are OK and your places of work haven't been damaged.

You should be fine Klaas - the police seemed to have things in hand,mainly city centre retail looting...didn't mean to scare you

Spoke to KJ earlier on; he's over here, his car is at Joe's, and the meet is on tomorrow.

I dont think I will make it tomorrow, no news back from the garage yet.

Have a good one guys.

sorry to miss this it would have been an excellent chance to air the purple gifts Klaas gave at Spa. I don't get back from Turkey until late 13th :-(

Mine is still in the garage with a few bits expected from Fiat tomorrow.

Hope you all had a good one guys, would have liked to have put some faces to user names.

Hopefully, next time...

I'm probably the first one home

Was great to see some familiar faces again, over a rather nice meal at Frankie & Bennie's

Good to see Adam and Charlotte, after their off-road excursion in Charlotte's lovely Sprint VIS

Great to see cjh, even though he was slightly over-dressed for the occasion (had a tie on - guess he was on the way home from work?)

Also good to see Neil - apparently, he'd been working on the Quanturbo at Joe's, so he wasn't a million miles away

Porkypaul, missus and daughter were also there (although Paul looked a bit put out when Lisa said that she preferred the "black headlights to his funny grey ones"

And of course, great to see Klaas, Joke and Lene again

For an impromptu mini-meet, it was very nice indeed

I'll second that Nigel. Although I have had to put her right about the headlight colour

Have a safe trip back Klaas.

Drive-shaft on the 20, Nigel, not the quanturbo. And holding gearboxes and subframes up in the air for Joe to fasten cars to.

Good to see all - I'm probably last back! (32.2 indicated).

yup

Nice to see everyone again...Good to show a bit of effort if Klaas and Co. have travelled half way across Europe - food wasnt bad either

Had to turn up in the work clobber as came straight from work...

On the down side i clipped my car and then got a flat tyre on the way home....

German Junk

We had a great time girls and boys! And boy did Joe do good work on the car! Jake The Fiddler scratched my dashboard strip though, so Joe is working on a new one. That'll be the third to go on. It's doomed!

Neil - thanks for the help with gearboxes and subframes. Widget finally as well!

Nigel - thanks for the spin. Still amazed. The way you kept the character and balance of the car while turning it into a rocket! I can't believe we went from 1 to 2 elephants per hour in under 3 dustparticles! I m p r e s s i v e.

Cj - nice to meet you again and looking forward to the little project.

Porky - so good to see you again. In the end Joe replaced my wishbones with oem ones, but the bushes are all yours, it feels superb.

Joe's brother reminded me of Lichfield's cathedral. 3 spires and all! Joe needs to be working out more.

Pete thanks for meeting up again.

Joe, expect me back in the not too distant future. I still need those indicators sorting, those bushes,... But honest is honest, after getting the flywheel and clutch changed it now feels utterly brilliant brand spanking new. But hey, is there anything we didn't cover yet? Very pleased with the issues you spotted. You know what I mean by carte blanche and getting it perfect.

DaveG, sorry to have been unable to meet up, but jst a little patience still...

LOL - what a great (and not illegal) way to describe the swift progress we made, officer...

Shame I only had a quarter of a tank of fuel, and it's nearly a month old - with half a tank of fresh V-Power, we could have run 1.7 bar, which is "entertaining"

Have to add - upon regaining access to my own Coupe, I now have the most impressive sounding starter motor I have experienced. Joe said I was going to like it. It's nothing OOMPH or anything, he said it makes it sound like it's running forged internals. All I can say is it sounds like it's turning it with 3 times the effort of the old one. Really 'HUMHUMHUMHUM brrrwwww' and it starts firing on the second HUM.

I will have to record this.

I recall him muttering about finding the right starter for you...

But that's Joe all over, he will stop at nothing to give the best service a man can offer!!!!

Sorry again I didn't get to come
Down KJ, when your next here (or we come to you ) I will give you them horns!

Hope you have / had a safe trip home!