on the road again

but cheating and traveling by car! as this was our club rally, we travelled to Cornwall by car so we would have transport if required for food shopping etc.
The rally in question was the Deja Vu held by Drake MCC, usual tent in a muddy field event, drinking evening on Friday followed by a band and Vicars n Tarts party on Saturday I will spare you the photos of hairy men drssed as tarts though :-)

So , it was a cold and frosty weekend as the photos will testify!!

not a good time to stay outside with your bike!! however this frozen biker turned out to be a little less alarming close up.

but it was easily cold enough for the bikes to grow a frosty overcoat.

I occupied myself with a bag of the mystery fleece to sort and comb out and a play on my drop spindle. Fun was had as alcohol was consumed and I have many blurry pictures that will not mean anything unless you were there yourself! On the way home we stopped off in Honiton to grab a paper and I spotted several tiled pictures including these two.

I now have the challenge of spinning 100 gm of wool that was sorted etc under the influence of alcohol, maybe not such a good idea but who can resist partying with these guys?

Hope you all had a good weekend :-)

City Pulse and country chill

Hi
It's the start of a holiday weekend here in the UK and we will be spending some time down in the city centre at the City Pulse. For anyone near Nottingham, this is a free music festival spread over 3 days in the city centre with four venues being used, all but one outdoors (the other being in a marquee) Full details can be found here. Bikerted is really looking forward to seeing Dr Feelgood whilst I will be happy to listen and spin to anyone. I suspect the drop spindle will get plenty of use :-)

For a taste of what is in store, check out these posts by Bikerted .reviewing previous city pulse events.

What have I been up to recently? well our bike club (Drake MCC) had our annual summer rally last weekend and for the last ten or so years these have been famous for their bad weather. Thunderstorms and torrential rain are usually the norm for this event seeing soggy bikers sat in the control tent or hiding in the pub. However this year thinks were a little different !!





On the fibre front, I was able to do quite a bit of knitting over the weekend and a little spinning whilst hiding in the shade. It was the hottest weekend of the year so far and we all had a great time although I suspect the ride back may have been a little painful for one or two sun burnt bodies!!



I also had the opportunity recently to catch up with fellow raveller Wikkidknitter for an afternoon of knitting and spinning and drinking coffee!











The weaving attempts continue with a little untidy tablet weaving, some more texture with hand spun silk and one of the spinning wheels has alpaca/merino on it. The other wheel, the sonata, has some Shetland along with a practise bobbin for when I take it out with me.








Todays tasks are to tidy the house then head out and enjoy the music, umbrella ready in case. After all this IS a British bank holiday, its bound to RAIN!!

Have a great weekend everyone, and thanks for reading, I really appreciate your comments and friendship.

playing soldiers

Whilst we were camping in Cornwall the other week, we learnt a couple of new games:-

Save the Jelly Babies...drown a jelly baby in your pint then save it with a straw



Stupid things to do with balloons.



Soldiers...........everyone has a toy soldier either green or brown



On the first whistle assume the same position as your toy soldier.



On two whistle blasts rally your troops, fortunately for me the green troops rallied at the bar!

Santa wasn't quite sure what to make of all this :-)



However all our mess was cleared up before the cleaners arrived thanks to Phyl and the team who mucked in inspite of hangovers.



By the way, it's a little cold and frosty camping in Cornwall in December!

Cornwall

The Armada Rally was wet but great fun, the location was the same as the two moons rally and can be seen here and here. As the usual suspects turned up, I will not bore you with the photos of drunken bikers :-)

However, I would like to show this one, taken during a very brief interlude in the rain. This is a road, not a footpath! reversing your car and finding a passing place are major driving skills in this part of the country.

mix and match hobbies

We drove down to the Deja Vu rally in the car as we had the new (to us) control tent to pass onto members of our bike club. As we live 270 plus miles from the rest of the club, we often have to combine various errands with the one trip.

A great time was had by all, the local social club provided drink and food in the evening and these guys were the breakfast chefs in the mornings.

thanks Ian and Robbie ( and Val and Rosie)

beautiful sunrise Sunday morning

As I knew that I would have time on my hands whilst manning the control desk, basically ensuring that people had tickets and passing out badges, I took my drop spindle.



Must have been a strange sight but I did get some spinning done between answering questions about it.

I even got to do some extreme bobbin lace by braiding a friends hair, he was most impressed and took away the instructions as to how to do it. ( half stitch plait).

See. I said I was mixing and matching my hobbies!!

Just a quickie

Just in case you wondered where I was, we went to a bike rally on Friday.

Come to sunny Cornwall they said,




They lied!!

More tomorrow once I've sorted photos etc.

Border Patrol 2008

We are back home, tired, muddy but happy as we have just returned from a camping weekend organised by our club Drake MCC, Pintpullers MCC and Tamar MCC. Around 70 bikers attended and we raised over £900 for the Air Ambulance Service!!






more photos here

I spent two mornings cooking breakfast, sausage and bacon whilst fellow bikers Alan and Robbie took care of the eggs and beans. Ian and Biker Ted were left in charge of the washing up.

Last Drop Rally 2008

As I mentioned previously, Ian travelled to Lincoln and scrounged a spare part for the bike, fitted and fettled it eventually worked. Hooray!! we loaded up and dashed to the Last Drop Rally hosted by Saddlesore Rally club and as you can see, it stopped raining at long last. So here are a few photos of various bikes and riders!! showing how to have a good time.






NB. The bike broke down on the way back outside Trent Bridge cricket ground just as the Test Match had finished, found ourselves surrounded by men wearing dresses and men wearing grass skirts. Makes us bikers look quite tame!!

Two Moons Rally 2008 Drake MCC

On Saturday night, three birthdays including Robbies 40th and my own 48th were celebrated in style.

Why does it always rain in Cornwall?

For the last 11 years we have attended the annual Drake MCC 'Summer Rally' eventually becoming part of this small and friendly club. The first year we went, the sun came out and shone all weekend not to be seen again until last year. Well maybe I exaggerate a little but we have had more than our fair share of riding back in heavy rain from just off the campsite to within a few miles from Nottingham ( 270 miles)

This year I had my fingers crossed but the rain started about 60 mile from home on Thursday and was more on than off until Sunday morning! Maybe it's time to trade in the bike for a boat:)

We made it down to the site in time to help put up the marque, well Ian helped whilst I played at putting up our tent. We managed to bag two Round Britain Rally landmarks on the way down. At one of the them, the old gentleman living opposite the landmark came out and offered to take Ians photo. I think he is going to have a lively summer as there are several hundred bikes competing this year and I suspect he will be offering to photograph each one.


On Friday we rode round in the rain chasing a few more landmarks which included going on a ferry, our bike loves ferries, always behaves herself. This is crossing the estuary at Fowey.



This is a sneaky shot us both of us, yes at long last you can see what we look like. This is what the best dressed bikers are wearing this summer in the UK- thermals, leathers and waterproofs- no wonder I look like the Michelin man!! The small person with us is Rufus, a fellow RBR contestant who we met up with en route.

Addiction?

you must all forgive me for becoming slightly addicted to lace making as it has forced sewing onto the back boiler at the moment. There is a reason for it which will be revealed next month. Anyway, here is the latest offering, floral torchon lace but made with a finer thread than recommended so we will See what happens when I take it off the pillow. Hopefully it won't disintegrate but I want to mount it anyway so it should work.

On the bike front, we have found somewhere to hopefully get the starter motor fixed and the club chairman rang at the weekend to make sure we would be there as part of the marquee erecting team on the Thursday so fingers crossed on the weather! ( why do people always ring when you are in the shower?)

On the road again

This weekend saw us at the Hungry Hedgehog Rally organised by Hungry Hedgehog Moto Touring Club .
The Rally took place near Abingdon and helped raise funds for Hedgehog rescue

We rode down on Saturday to join some of our club for Saturday night, these photos were taken Sunday morning as the mist and frost started to burn off.

Breakfast for Drake MCC, Moorlanders MCC, and Tamar MCC

Dutch contingent getting ready to ride to Dover

The sun broke through eventually!!

Did we have summer in May???

Each May,our bike club organises a motorcycle rally near Altarnun close to Bodmin in Cornwall. Most years we have torrential rain, gale force winds and more rain for the whole weekend resulting in a soggy tent being hung around the house for days drying out. This year we managed to bag several RBR Landmarks and see the sun!! here are a couple of photos for those in the UK who have forgotten what a blue sky looks like!!