Love the people, as well as the cars

If there is one thing that came loudly out of what everyone had to say today in memory of Ed Smith (“MaxaMINI”), who died suddenly last week, it is love of people. Ed was a fabulous guy to know, he loved his MINI and his contributions to the MINI community are legendary. But he also obviously loved his wife, Mart, his family and pretty well every person he met.

At MINI events attended by Ed, you were almost certain to be greeted by him – especially if you had a child in hand, where Ed would magically produce a gift for them (and often for you too).
Such behaviour is just one reason why so many people remember Ed so fondly, and came to the memorial today.

 

After the memorial service, where we from the MINI community were privileged to share memories with Eds family & long time friends, a group of us managed to stay together on the busy roads long enough to make it to Chilis for dinner – it was a pleasant end to what surprisingly turned out to be a good day, just as Ed would have expected.

Happy Birthday Ed

If we had not lost Ed (“MaxaMINI”) last week, it would have been his birthday today … in tribute it has been suggested that today his friends “float a duck”; so on the way home tonight I stopped at Silly Goose Toys to see what ducks they had; and tonight we headed out to Gloucester breakwater, to “free the ducks” into the ocean.

When we saw a real duck swim out from the breakwater, we decided this was the spot to release the tribute ducks …

Ed, we will miss you …

MAMA BBQ & Berries

Yesterday more than 20 MINIs gathered at At Monadnock Berries for the MAMA Berries & BBQ event (see this MINI2 thread)
We had a beautiful day and the farm location is fabulous, sitting at the top of a hill with green into the distance and Mount Monadnock in the distance:

(the duck with arm band is in tribute to Ed (“MaxaMINI”) who died suddenly just before the event)

The day started out a little “bumpy”, especially for Derek (“MetalMiniMayhem”) – his MINI got sick on the way to the farm:

But thanks to the astounding skills of Pete (“BWROOFCHEX”), Dereks car was fixed in time to join our drive later in the afternoon.

It was a great day with a great group of MINI friends, great berries, great food and great views – thanks to Tony & Fenella for inviting us, Rick & Laurie for organizing the event and the drive, and everyone for making the day such fun …