The LSMOC run started with about eight cars meeting up on the A3 at about 7:15 a.m. on 5^th May. We made Reading Services in good time to meet up with the rest of the LSMOC crowd, and chat to lots of other friends, before getting our plaques fitted ready for the 9:00 a.m. start. The car park at Reading was full to the brim with Minis, with everyone eagerly anticipating the first big run of the season.

The run down the M4/M5 was great, no road works or major hold ups for a change. It seemed that no sooner had you started off you were making another stop, as there were four stops in motorway service stations to pick up more cars. The longest stop was at Gordano for lunch, which gave everyone an opportunity to meet up with new friends and get to know each other. A lot of local Mini owners seemed to join us at each service station even if they weren’t on the run, or just join in the run for a while before going off somewhere else for the weekend. I don’t know what the final figure was for the number of cars, but apparently there were a lot more than last year.

Once we got off of the M5 there were no more stops and the route became more interesting, through the Devon countryside into Cornwall. At various places groups of Minis were stopped in lay-bys, causing a lot of flashing and tooting as we sped past. By the time we came off of the A30 there were no other cars to be seen for miles apart from Minis – heaven!

When we arrived at Trevelgue we joined the queue to get into the site, it looked as if it would take forever, but in fact moved fairly quickly. We got the keys to our caravan and drove up the hill to find it. I must say I was very pleasantly surprised! As someone who hasn’t stayed in a caravan for years, I was certainly not expecting it to be as luxurious, spacious, and well equipped as it turned out to be – especially considering how much it cost!

After settling in, we went down to the Cabaret Club for a meal and a drink, and relaxed for a while, before having a reasonably early night after all the driving.

The next day was another fine one, and we wandered down the hill to find all the traders had arrived overnight and set everything up. Although there were not as many there as you’d expect at a big show, there was enough to satisfy most people, for most the first opportunity of the year to start getting the bits they needed for their cars.

Most of the day was spent wandering around the stands and looking at all the cars. The one thing that seemed missing was a general parking area – I often think that the best part of shows is looking at the cars in the car park, the ones that don’t go onto club stands or concourse. Instead all the cars were parked up by the caravans or in the camping area, so you had to walk round the whole of the caravan site to see them all!

I got to meet quite a few the people I’d spoken to on the Internet, as we’d all arranged to meet up. The major problem we all seemed to have was that mobile phones just didn’t seem to want to work properly there – most of us resorted to text messaging each other all the time.

The Show’n’Shine had some good entrants, including quite a lot of really nice cars we hadn’t seen before. After the prize giving we all went to get our cars to start the Cruise. It seemed to take ages to get them all moving and off the site, but once we got moving we seemed to go pretty quickly. We were given an instruction sheet with the route on it, but even so some managed to get lost! It seemed whatever direction you looked there were Minis, and all the locals were standing outside their houses waving at us all. I don’t know how many miles we covered, but it was a lot, it lasted for about two and a half to three hours, and a lot of the route was fairly fast moving.

That night we had a barbeque and a good few drinks, before going down to the Powerhouse Club on the site. We all had a really good time, and before we knew it, it was about 2.00 a.m., after which we staggered back up the hill to the caravans.

The next morning there was another Cruise to the Eden Project – I can’t tell you about that, because I didn’t get up in time! It was described as "the Eighth Wonder of the World, where space age technology meets the lost world where a 50m deep crater the size of 35 football pitches has been sculpted into a living theatre of plants and people". Some of our members went and thought it was good, although entrance was fairly expensive and the general feeling was that the plants etc. hadn’t had enough time to settle down properly – it will probably be more impressive next year.

After that most people started cleaning their caravans and packing their cars for the long journey home. The weather was still brilliant, so at that stage I decided I was staying on for the rest of the week!

All in all it was a really enjoyable event, I’m certainly hoping to do it again next year. Thanks to the Cornish Mini Club and MiniWorld for arranging it.