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Here is the promised continuation of our story:
Of course all the agony was not over yet.... On the 14th September Geoff was finally
ready. and was officially traded in by the dealer.
Well, my husband drove it for one hour and suddenly heard some strange knocking noises
from the bottom of the engine.
The engine was dead, just left us. At that stage of MG knowledge he guessed that the crank
bearings or the big ends were gone.
As we wanted the car for daily driving, we played for sure and decided to go for a rebuild
engine. Fortunately our garage, with the normal warranty (no warranty for an old car) was
very generous and paid half of the new engine. The bad thing was, we were yearning to
drive and still couldn't. We almost had to wait for another month. Our garage gave us a
car all the time we were not able to drive Geoff, they were really tremendous!! D-day was
going to be the 16th October.
The last nice days for driving were used by us fanatically, as you can imagine. As
the bad weather comes insight a hardtop was bought also. Geoff was driven all winter and
till January we had to go through some more hardships. There was always something broken,
the lights were more of than on (we had to discover the secrets of the Prince of Darkness,
of course) and the bills were piling. One day I freaked. If we have one more heavy bill
Geoff is going to be sold!! He must have big ears, because after January he never failed
(he couldn't - everything was new and as I honest must say my husband finished the job to
get rid of al the emission control equipment and had just installed two HS 4 carbs ). The first sunny days in March were for us.
In May we planned a big tour as a try out for our summer holiday. In the mean time we
even bought a little trailer (don't laugh your head of, it really looks cute).
In May we went to the southern of Germany and drove about 1.500 miles in five days. The
weather was great, Geoff was doing great, those were the days I really fell in love with
Geoff. My husband was hooked months ago, of course.
In Germany we had our first real shower with the hood down. We really enjoyed it and my
husband said I looked like a drowned cat!
And then it happened, some German women drove into our back. The right rear wing was
lightly damaged, the light was broken and I could have killed that women. We were really
depressed, but after a discussion we decided to go on. Lucky the women was insured and we
had taken some pictures of the side and the two cars. So I decided to skip the
killing. 
So in the middle of Germany, somewhere in the Odenwald we spent our first night. The Midget drew some attention at the Hotel. Some nice old gentlemen told us about their old Mercedes Roadster. English vintage cars are quite rare in Germany because they have lots of 'native' old-timers.
The next day we set of for our first destination, a friend of mine living in Bavaria a 50 miles beneath Munich. In Bavaria and the south, the landscape seems to be designed to drive an open car. The country side is gorgeous. So after a drive of some 300 miles we finally arrived. First we went to have some coffee and guess what... they had also an old-timer. A Lloyd Alexander, restored till the last bolt.
Geoff looked quite shabby against that beautiful Lloyd. Rainer, the owner with a quite complete utilized double garage, gave Geoff first aid, to prevent the rear light from drowning. That day the main subject was of course old cars and old cars and old cars/pictures and so on.
This night Geoff spent his night in the mentioned luxury garage, we drove to a nice old farmhouse with their BMW 525 to spent the night there. The hotel was everything you wanted, except the few long legged spiders who already made themselves comfortable in the double bed ( not for long of course). The breakfast was lovely, the landlady welcoming and you didn't really have the feeling being in a hotel.
The next day we had to part, reluctantly, from Rainer and Andrea and went on for our next visit. This time we were heading for direction Basel. It was a real hot day and we were very sorry for all those drivers with a roof above their heads. The scent of wild flowers was really overwhelming, we were sniffing like dogs.
In Meersburg we decided to take the ferry to Konstanz, to take a shortcut instead of driving around the Bodensee. We had no problems with ground clearance. But we had problems with traffic jams because it was the end of a bank holiday. It took us ours to get out of the area. We were getting worried about Geoff getting overheated also because of the hot weather. On our way we had a minor problem with the fuel pump. It started to smell in the car and we decided to quit smoking in the car, avoiding blowing ourselves up. But he did fine till home and we changed the fuel pump and Geoff was ready to go again.
Finally we arrived in Weil am Rhein, the German counterpart of Basel, totally
exhausted. We had driven that day 400 miles and not under easy circumstances. We stayed
with friends for two nights. On Wednesday we drove back by highway in one day, about 500
miles! Poor Geoff, not exactly designed for highways. The weather was mixed. Hood
on, hood off. At home, the first thing which needed to be done was getting Geoff in shape
again.
Repairs and respray in a very short time. On Friday the 13th (!) Geoff had to be
ready for the Silverstone weekend combined with our holiday.
To be continued ....