Pissed & Confused MCC Midsummer Rally
White Hart, Little Waltham
A more lack of work meant more time to pack, but having more stuff & less space made this more difficult than previously. Greg arrived on the dreaded white ZZR at 15:00, but with packing & bungie-ing and poking things in the tank bag, we didn't leave till after 16:00. A couple of testing seatings later, we headed off for the BP garage, to pull me, the grilfiend (Julie) and the tank bag off & fill up. At this point (unbeknownst to me) Greg received a txt msg. from a gril he had met a couple of days earlier, at the funeral of my Dear Friend, Kippa. But he didn't read it.
We headed off down the usual route to Colchester, via Cranfield, Marston Moretaine (wave to Wa's Neil) & Baldock. A nice bit of road out the other side of Baldock, I think I have wrote about it previously. Two up, heavily loaded, knackered chain, open faced lid on the SuperFour, we launched in to it. I did actually warn Julie to 'hold on' & gave the bike all 13,500 revs (& then some). Woosh! Bike handled perfectly, grilfiend pillion flawlessly. We touched a ton more than once, hard down on the brakes and over easy, power out using all the road. All traffic either moved or simply disposed of. Single rider, 60mph higher top-end White ZZR? Nowhere. Hee, I love that road.
We stopped at the tiny petrol station just past Stanstead, where Greg read the aforementioned msg. Which asked for her (Lisa, sadly known to me as 'BillyBob' cos I couldn't remember her name) to be collected and brought to the rally. Greg showed this to Julie, who said "go get her", but not to me. So I said "head 'em up, move 'em out" and rode off futher into Essex.
We arrived in due course at the White Hart & said hello to some friend from the Pissed & Confused. Commiserated Elaine on the sad death of her mother. Also poked at by Jane (her of the long healthy walks arrgh!) for not replying to her email Oops. Directions to campsite were "down the pub garden and through the gap in the hedge". "Hoho", thinks we "ver' funny tall man". No, no, really, down the pub garden and through an actual gap in the hedge, into a foopball field.
We collected our rally patches, surveyed the tiny bit of field we were allowed to camp on, the foopball pitch itself being cordoned off from nastly hooly bikers, then tramped up hill to the car park, collected what gear we could carry, returned to the campsite. Repeat as needed. When we had a heap of stuff I asked Greg what was wrong with his face & he muttered about the message from BillyBob ^H^H^H Lisa. Taking charge in a manly fashion, I ordered him back to MK, promised to put his tent up & threw him at the ZZR. I put our tent up & left Julie to sort out the insides of it, whilst I went & wrestled with the lunacy that is Greg's tent. Sheesh, I know my tent cost me a LOT of muney & a fair bit of grief, but I quickly realised it has many advantages over lesser, cheaper tents. I also lent the huge airbed pump to the nearby collection of peeps, giving them some cheap laffs ("I though that was scuba gear" "here, on ze naughtyless, missus costeau & myself" etc etc).
Chores done, we grabbed some beer & cider headed off for a burger from the BBQ that ran almost continously over the weekend. The evening passed nicely, chatting to friends, peering at the bikes, drinking & eatings. Also listening to the band from a safe distance. The band were in the pub (which is not a big pub) & seemed to believe they were at, say, Glastonbury. Or at least wanted to be heard in Glastonbury. Julie discovered that she knew of & had heard a lot about Elaine from a mutal friend of theirs, they found some stories & laffs to share. Kit and his grilfiend (nice lady with curly black hair and hat) & Janet were wandring aboot, we all had a laff. Greg 'n BillyBob arrived back around midnight. "didn't want to chance those roads on my bike at night" claimed Greg. The bike you fitted huge spotlights on?? We later discovered that his route had taken him down the M1, round the M25, up the M10, through Chelmsford & into Little Waltham. A route I personally can't even conceive of, let alone ride.
Saturday dawned early & warm. Or at least warm, cos I stayed in the tent whilst Greg, Julie & Lisa wandered off for tea & breakfast. I eventually found some ver' black shades & headed to the BBQ myself, where Elaine served me a nice enough & quite cheap breakfast. Even though my shades I could tell the hot-dog portion of it was not cooked, so I chucked it in the nettles, away from the pub dog. The dog had other ideas though & spent a long time digging this sausage out of the stinging nettles. It was damn proud of itself when it managed to get the hot-dog.
After some more lounging we saddled up & headed into Chelmsford for a wander. A brief u-turn later we located the free bike parking - ver' considerate of the council, that - & went shoppering. The silly hat shop was 1st & definately best. It called itself a 'Military Surplus' shop, but was mostly full of silly hats. Army hats, firemens hats, polismens hats, Solar Topi's. Class, & source of much fun.
After the delights of Chelmsford had palled upon us, we headed for the ubiquitous Tescos. Which Greg claimed he knew the way to, having passed it on his impromptu tour of Essex & the outlands the previous night. More fool me, I believed him. More u-turns, missed signposts, someone's house, bothering of a man & his dog later, we arrived, shopped and et ice-cream. And then. Then we followed Greg back to Little Waltham. Greg was clearly using The Force, which is all good, I use The Force alot, for navigation & bike control (400cc 4-cylinder Japanese imports have no steering & come equipped with The Force). Greg is now known by a new slogan "The Force is /not/ strong in this one". Heh. We made it back to Little Waltham, coming in on a road I didn't even know >was< a road, I thought it was a dead end & I suspect the locals did too. Fer sure, we found out different.
More lounging, picnicing & chocolate cake followed, with intermittant reading (The Way to Xanadu, Caroline Alexander). Lisa was too stoned to roll her own joints & we were too mean to roll them for her, so the poor dear had to wait until she came round enough to do herself some for the evening. A couple of bands played during the afternoon & early evening. At an appropriate time we grabbed some beer, cider & chocolate. I managed to extract from Julie where she had hidden the box of After Eight mints, so I packed them too. We set up a base camp not far from the stage. I bought myself a new arab scarf & Julie bought herself a new nose ring. My friend from Flitwick, Karen & her husband Nick were not far from us, so I sat and chatted to them for a bit.
The main band of the evening was a proper, real live rock'n'roll band, with quiffs & double bass. Cooler than a polar bear's lugs, daddio. Infinitely better than any blues band, there was some jumping going on that night. Even Julie managed to come up & boogie for a couple of numbers, despite claiming "I can't dance to that!". WTF? Rock'n'Roll is what dancing was /invented/ for.
Poor Elaine was stuck behind the BBQ again, so I passed her a handfull of After Eights to make her smile, then handed round some to Jane, Janet, and Annette, club president of the Iceni MCC I understand? Those girls do like mint chocolate!
We danced, drank & et strange things from the BBQ for the rest of the night. Never asked the bloak behind you for his opinion on what you are ordering - "bacon & cheese roll, does that sound good to you?" "yes mate, that'll be grate!". Heh. Teech me, I spose. And so to bed.
Sunday dawned earlyish & less warm. We packed up the tents & gear and had fun loading it all on the bike. Sadly, I seemed to have packed it in a different way to Friday's, resulting in a fitting failure. A Pissed & Confused chap by the name of 'Monkey' provided a spanner for the removal of the rear indicators, allowing the panniers to sit futher back. It all more or less fit in the end, so we waved g'bye, headed off into the sunshine. Greg & Lisa went to Cambridge to see Chuffy. I dare not ask how they got there.
The sunshine faded a bit along the A10, a few spots of rain caused me to drop the hammer a bit futher. After a brief fuel stop, the Baldock road beckoned, a tarmac invitiation to test the limits of human idiocy sorry skill, Bridgestone BattleAx adhesion and Honda rev-limiters. Four (and eighteen) wheel chicances are well used to bikes on this stretch & moved over to let us fly by. Ace fun, then back through Millbrook & Marton Moretayne, home for tea and lemon cake.
posted by zedley 5:53 PM[edit]