Drive Your Figaro Day Eastern Group Meets – Saturday 15th June 2024

Words and Pictures by Eastern Chapter Coordinator Adam Woods

After last year’s March Drive Your Figaro Day (DYFD) was a bit of a washout with pouring rain, scheduling for June this year stood us a better chance of nice weather. Well, at least the rain this year was a bit more like a tropical storm with thunder and torrential rain! But we’ll get back to that later…

Meeting lovely Figgy Folk is ALWAYS a joy, so again for this year’s Drive Your Figaro Day, we decided to meet at two garden centres with big car parks 75 miles apart at either end of the Eastern Chapter!

Part one was in Essex over at Harlow Garden Centre, which has a nice cafe popular last year. As we headed out from Suffolk, the weather looked fine, but as we crossed the border into Essex, the clouds swept in, joined by a little rain as we arrived… but that wasn’t going to dampen our spirits as one by one Figgys pulled in and joined us from 11 am.

This Figgys and Chat format works so nicely as everyone just has a chance to chat and share their Figgy experiences, poking around each other’s cars… and not only is it lovely to catch up with Figgy friends we’ve met before but welcome new club members and Figgy owners. And after a good chat, we all headed in for some coffee and cake and chatted some more…

Time seemed to flash us by as suddenly it was time for us to leave as we were heading over to meet more Figgy Folk in Norfolk… but as we said our goodbyes, with a huge rumble of thunder, the sky’s opened and it poured down!!

Part Two
But we had to crack on and get over to Bressingham Garden Centre, another popular choice from past years… and we had a little convoy drive planned too, so there was no time to lose!

The weather seemed to calm as we travelled the 75 miles, but as we neared Bressingham the gods were being a bit mean as the heavens opened again… seeing 5 of the 6 cars were there, we hung around until the final car arrived then headed in to catch up with everyone sheltering from the storm and indulged in some coffee and cake.

The storms kept rolling in, so we did our best to nip back out to take some photos between the showers and thunder, including with people by their cars!

Overall it was certainly fun to be out with our Figs on Drive Your Figaro Weekend, and as always fantastic to meet lovely Figgy Owners!!

Thanks to everyone who came out to enjoy the day, braving the storms!

ADAM AND LUKAS WITH SPARKY