Le Moteur est dans le Pre, Giverny Sept 7/8th 2019

By Richard Amos

Once again, Jon Foster and I  made our annual  trip to the Giverny show in France in Jon’s Discovery and my trailer carrying Jon’s Blackstone ‘Blister’ engine and my 4.5hp Fuller and Johnson. Somewhere in the back was Jon’s Henrici hot air engine.  Having taken the overnight ferry our arrival was in a very cold Giverny at about 7am. Breakfast in the village bakery/cafe , which had just opened, were freshly baked croissants and jam.  Nobody was around at the show site so we dumped our engines and set up the tents, no luxury B and B this year.  It didn’t take long for the show site to awaken so after setting up we viewed the much enlarged For Sale section to see the goodies on offer.

Saturday morning the show bursts into life with about 100 engines running and a lot of friendly banter amongst enthusiasts who last met at Giverny a year ago. As for the engines, not only does everyone try to bring something interesting but to us for the UK, they are makes we just don’t see here like Brouhot, Rajueni, Millot, Thierry, Noel etc. Those of you who made the October Faygate club meeting will have seen a video of this years show.   Saturday evening, the noise dies as exhibitors visit the museum in the village to look around the impressive collection of engines. Wine and nibbles were to be had while we watched a large twin cylinder two cycle engine being started by blowlamp. The Singer factory visit was arranged for Sunday morning. This houses two large drop valve steam engines, one of which can be run on compressed air, as well as the associated generators and a large collection of singer sewing machines. Having been there several times we opted for the local  ‘Vide et Grenier’ boot sale,  to see what we could find.  Back to the show just in time for lunch in the ‘La Manivelle’ the show site refreshment marquee before resuming our engine display and emptying a few more bottles of wine.  Finally, Sunday evening till late was a social in the marquee. The three days at Giverny had been dry but quite cold at night. Leaving on the Monday it was with a little regret that a fine weekend was over so quickly. The trailer came home a little heavier with a  Quentin engine from the for sale section. Next year, if we ever Brexit,  maybe UK customs might be a deterrent to bringing machinery back to the UK. In the past I have brought engines back to the UK from Japan, outside the EU, and had to pay import duty!