Eventually I manage to escape from my office, it's been a hard
day trying to maintain any focus knowing I'm off to the Rock and
Blues tonight.
By about 7:00 we leave Mark and Carol's, Mark with Janice on
pillion and Carol's German friends in the volvo.
The usual long and tedious blatt down the A1 followed.
Once on site chaos. The car can't go down there, can't camp here,
can't find the disabled area. Eventually I have a strop and blatt
off up the hill determined to camp anywhere and have a drink. I'm
just over the brow when a voice cries "Harriet". It's
Dav, Sue, Denzel, Belinda and Ben the Sprog fresh from a hot and
sunny fortnight in Scotland and desperate for someone to talk/gloat
to about it.
All the stress of the last few hours evaporates and I start to
drift into that particular laid back haze that is the Rock and
Blues.
Dav, with suntan, towel and carpet slippers ...
It's hot. As in "fuggin'ell get me out of the tent"
hot. By about mid-morning Mark and I reckon we're together enough
to go for a ride, no-one else is interested which suits us fine.
The plan is to go ride the Cat and Fiddle, cos it would be a
waste not to having come all this way.
By the time we reach Buxton we are wide awake and ready to play.
With a final warning to Mark to watch it we set off for
Macclesfield.
The arrival of Andy and Jo.
Later we're sat in the Tesco cafe grinning like idiots and
planning the return assault when the rains start.
The return journey takes far, far longer, both of us having scary
slides at even moderate speeds. Once past the Cat and Fiddle pub
the weather dries out again and we enjoy the ride down to Buxton.
As we have all day ahead we go for a tour round the Peak District
via Castleton, Hathersage, Chesterfield Motorcycles and
eventually Matlock to stock up on beer.
As it's blazing hot again we decide to stop in Matlock Bath for a
well deserved pint in a beergarden by the river.
Back on site the rest of the Darlington contingent are either
here or imminent, so it's time to open a few more beers.
A conversation. We're all talking to young Ben (aged 8] about
Scotland
Us: "And what part of Scotland is Jamie from"
Ben: (after due consideration) "The hairy bit"
Us: ROFL
Later we all stumble our way down to watch the bands. The
Levellers as usual are brilliant and I have a good boogie, I just
wish it had been a bit louder. if all the stalls and rides had
switched off their sound systems it would have helped.
It's a 'Busa with a paint job. Still aint any prettier ...
but when you're that fast who cares!
Guess what? It's hot and sunny again and although I'm up quite
early I'm very hung over. As in feeling like shit and hardly up
to waking let alone riding. Looks like the optimistically planned
tour talked about last night is out of the window.
Eventually we all feel just about up to a ride to Ripley to pick
up supplies and a cafe type breakfast.
Back at the site we are all straight back in to the party mood
and, more to the point, beer. A walk round the stalls and bike
show is deemed in order and it's here that the first cloudburst
of the day happens. The custom bike tent suddenly becomes very
popular ...
Shiney headstock and the best (non drinking) bars I've seen for a long time
The main band tonight are Motorhead. Initially the sound is
crap, ie no vocals. That is soon sorted and for the next few
songs all is well, then things start to crackle and break up.
Somewhere during all this I loose interest and start that
convoluted stagger back to my tent, via somewhere selling garlic
bread and (I think) Mark and Carols tent.
Some hours later I'm half woken by everyone else coming back and
Helen proudly telling all and sundry how she can pee in an empty
beer can without spilling a drop.
It won prizes and it was riden back to Scotland after the show.
It's another hot morning, I open the tent and peer out. The
tents are surrounded by half empty beer cans - I treat them with
extreme caution ...
By 10:00 I'm ready for the off before another party starts. The
only other person looking halfway together is LTJohn so we ride
back together. It continues hot and sunny till Darlington,
between there and Durham I get soaked twice in cloudbursts.
This was parked up next to us all weekend.
And it's gorgeous. The more you look at it the better it gets.
It took till Tuesday afternoon for me to get my head back together. I must be getting too old for this game...
I've saved the scariest till last.
This trike has got a V8 to get about on the road and to start
that thing poking out the back
It's a jet engine complete with afterburners!!!!