Like, totally surreal...
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Dismal the rain and low my spirits as I loaded up the bike on friday evening at work (12th May 2000). I headed off into the cloud and stupid traffic. I knew I was trying to get from a place I knew quite well TO a place I knew quite well, via some bits I had very little idea of. Get bored with the traffic and knowing which ever road I went down was the wrong one,I took a short cut. As it lead through the village where my mum lives I stopped off and said hello.
My mum got me directions from a friend of hers. Which were a start, but petered out halfway owing to impreciseness. A while motoring randomly thru Northampton, I stopped at a corner shop, which not only provided MadDog 20/20, but preciser (not a word!) directions. Whew. So on we go, through more stupid traffic and rain. Down half-remembered country lanes, passing loaded bikes going the other way...
As I traveled I had my mobile phone on a handsfree kit, waiting for a call from a girl in Birmingham, which never came. Damn people I thought, arrived at the rally and preceeded to put up my tent, next to my mate Martin's. All fairly normal so far...
Eventually I get a voicemail from the girl saying she had called 25times so far and would I call her on this number. Which was when I realised my phone was on divert to outerspace, and she hadn't left a message the 1st 25 times. Fer f*** sake I thinks!. So I call and we have a nice chat.
One of my ex-girlfriends was there, things had been a bit tense between us lately, we hadn't really spoken for a couple of months, but she was quite cheery-ish, showed me her old bike back on the road.
Then I went sat with some friends, had a bit of a smoke with them and we yammered on for a while. I'd started on the MadDog by this point, so a slight fuzziness was setting in.
Into the other marquee, more MadDog. The band were quite good, more friends of mine were up and dancing, along with some pretty girls, so I get up and boogie along too. We got some pretty wild boogieing going on, I managed to get some more of my friends up and dancing along too. Some of them needed some persude-ing :-) I seem to remember dancing an enthusiastic tango with a nice enough bloke. He couldn't decided wether he faniced me or one of the girls I was dancing near, more. I don't think either of us really fancied him, though.
During the interval Jon's excellent disco came on. I just managed to get him to play 'Turning Japanese' and get dancing with 2 pretty girls at once (more friends) when the band came back.
I got a bit wilder and started to shed more and more clothes as I kept dancing and got hotter and hotter. The ex was dancing as well, there were a quite a few people up by the stage. I didn't know then, but they were going and getting each other from all round the site to 'come see the dancing fool running round in his briefs'! 8-)
I recall collapsing on the strawbales, next to the ex and showing her my newest tattoos, then throwing up neatly into the bin bag. I was 'assisted' LOL back to my tent (I think I dressed myself!) by some large mates.
I woke up saturday morning at 9am, wearing everything, including coat and bangles, except socks. Walking to the bacon sandwich stall I got some cheery waves and lots of smiles.
With fuzzy head and very dark sunglasses, onto the bike and back home. I was very probably techincally drunk, not a good idea and one I would very strongly discourage anyone else from doing. My reactions were slow and inappropriate at time. My brain was not proccessing information at the required rate or arriving at the correct conclusions. Totally bad news :-(
I got in to find a letter from the B-Ham girl, with a self-portrait on the back of the envelope. It was as she had described herself by email, mustache, bolts through the neck and big mole on the nose. Which made me smile. I stopped smiling when I opened the envelope and found a pic of her! Bl***dy hell she was gorgeous!! I was gobsmacked. 8-)
I rapidly washed and changed, grabbed some stuff and the pics, ran for the train. Which I missed by 3 seconds. The next train decided that Watford Station was a lovely final resting, and determined that at such a place it would die. And so did. A few passengers hatched a plan to get a taxi to the tube station, and tube into Central London. As no live train was forthcoming, I joined them.
I ended up in a taxi with an extremely friendly professional stand-up Glaswegian comedian named Phil, a foriegn genleman who spoke fair english, and an Asian lady who spoke no english but had a notepad with 'Euston Station' on it, that she waved at everyone she saw, including the taxi driver, who needed little persudeing not to take us all there (at £35!)
At Watford tube station we all got out, except that we could not get the Asian lady from the cab. She knew she wasn't at Euston, but couldn't grasp that an alternative method was at hand. A few minutes later she rushed into the station, we concluded the taxi driver had forcibly ejected her!
Phil & I hid in another carriage, as Phil was convinced it was the only way to avoid marrying her! He was a wonderful, chatty travel companion, with an interest in mordern art and Acid Brass music.
I was now terribly late for the H2G2 meetup at Hyde Park. I managed to spot the other researchers from a fair way away. I won't say more on that as Shazz extracted a promise of an article for the Post on pain of pain!
I made it home (in gently steaming trousers!!), changed again, bought some more MadDog and headed back to the rally site. The Gwyn Ashton Band played that night, but sadly not their best. If'n I say more it will be libelous, so I shall not.
During a set break I was dragged from my bench in the Out-Of-Control tent into the marquee. On being told to leave my drink as 'I wouldn't need it where I was going' I became slightly apprehensive. I was dragged to the front of the stage and, in front of lots of my friends and many other bikers, I was presented with the Glen Ford memorial 'Arse of The Rally' Award. I was very proud to recieve this award. Glen Ford was a footnote in no-ones life, I will write another entry about him.
The band came back on. We started to notice some fireworks going off in the nearbly village (there were no other houses for about 5-10 miles in any direction). 3 of us stood and saw a small herd of horses in the next field illuminated by firework light, an amazing sight. Less amazing when they started to get frightened :-( Kerry turned to us and said 'coo, it would be amazing to watch this while stoned', where Jon & I laffed lots. 'So' I said 'Jon, whats your 1st hand opinion on this?' :-) There must have been 10s of thousands of pounds of fireworks let off, by a very skilled professional. It was about the best display I have ever seen, and went on for many minutes.
Later that evening, while sitting back on the bench, a 5ft pixie walked backwards out of the darkness, mooned at us, and carried on. Since Brian was totally sober and I was mildy sober, we both blamed Pete for letting his flashbacks get out of control!
Sunday dawned foggy. Extremely foggy, giving the Twighlight Zone impression the world had been stolen. Slowly the sun came out. And out. And futher out, till we thought we were living in Texas!
With one marquee to collapse and pack, work proceeded in the burning, but welcome, sunshine. The other marquee needed cleaning and emptying, with all the straw bales to be taken out and stacked in the next field, to be used as horse food.
Assisting in this tiring work was a very small boy, about 5, with muddy legs and shorts. He was pulling the bales out of position, rolling them a bit, and then picking them up and moving them end over end. Stood up on end they were taller than he was, a trainee Henge maker. He pushed them over, picked up the other end, and moved them very slowly into the 1st pile, outside the marquee. He must have moved 2 or 3 like this, carefully considering and then shifting any object in his path, and lining the bales in the right place to roll them between the marquee's supporting poles. So we worked, and he worked, and he helped carry a couple with me and throw them on pile.
We moved the very last one and put it on the pile. Tired, we sat on them, and had the following conversation;
'So' says the small boy 'are we done?'
'Yes' I reply 'thats them all out'
'Did we do well?'
'very well'
'will you give me some money now?'
'what??'
'can you pay me for moving the bales?'
'no mate, we're all voulenteers here, this is for free!!'
'but, have you got some money for me?'
I laughed, and looked at him. I gave him a quid in the end, what else could I do? His sister (about 7) complained she hadn't got any more, but I told her that was the way of the world. If you work, you get money, this is the way it goes.
We also had news of some surreal roadkill. In the middle of the countryside, miles from nowhere, you expect to see the odd dead pheasant (they are unbelivibly stupid), perhaps foxes, rabbits, maybe a badger. Just up the road someone had killed a Peacock. Quite sad perhaps, but definately a damn wierd thing to find in the Northants country side.
The marquee down and packed and my tent the same, I set off home. In the glorious sunshine I had no choice but to take the back roads and make the journey last as long as possible! I love the winding English country roads (see Motorbiking by Moonlight) and in full May bloom it was a wonderous sight.
On one of the quieter road I took my lid off and just rode slowly along, enjoying the sights, the smells, the sound of the bike puffing along at low revs. I know I seem to have taken a lot of stuff off this weekend, but sometime you just have to, y'know?
Coming round a corner, I arrived at a T-junction with a major road. The same T-junction at which, according to reports, my good friend 'Auntie' Sheila was killed by a drunk driver, several years ago. I stopped and prayed quietly for a while, for her and Glenn, and all my other passed away relatives and friends. I experienced a very spiritual feeling there that I am at a loss to describe. It was not a cold, spooky feeling, more a 'warm' sensation.
I rode on home at an appropriate pace to the traffic, stopping at a petrol station for a pint of milk. Whereupon I discovered I had exactly enough change for 1 pint, no more!
At home I unpacked the bike and stuffed things back into various cupboards. Being at loss for anything else to do on a sunday afternoon, I grabbed the panniers and headed off the supermarket (a bit boring that). I also took my mobile, cos it's much more fun to chat while wandering around. I rang my friend Tory, and got more shocking news! Her boyfriend, my mate Hoots, had sold and was in the process of removing, his 'prized' VW Beetle.
Now, people buy and sell cars everyday, no worries. Except this Beetle has been rusting it's way into the ground ever since, well forever, yet Hoots always maintained 'its goot ah good injun inat mon' (in his not-very-Scotch-anymore accent) and that it was a valuable piece of automotive history. Whilst everyone else knew it was a rusting piece of cak.
My mum got me directions from a friend of hers. Which were a start, but petered out halfway owing to impreciseness. A while motoring randomly thru Northampton, I stopped at a corner shop, which not only provided MadDog 20/20, but preciser (not a word!) directions. Whew. So on we go, through more stupid traffic and rain. Down half-remembered country lanes, passing loaded bikes going the other way...
As I traveled I had my mobile phone on a handsfree kit, waiting for a call from a girl in Birmingham, which never came. Damn people I thought, arrived at the rally and preceeded to put up my tent, next to my mate Martin's. All fairly normal so far...
Eventually I get a voicemail from the girl saying she had called 25times so far and would I call her on this number. Which was when I realised my phone was on divert to outerspace, and she hadn't left a message the 1st 25 times. Fer f*** sake I thinks!. So I call and we have a nice chat.
One of my ex-girlfriends was there, things had been a bit tense between us lately, we hadn't really spoken for a couple of months, but she was quite cheery-ish, showed me her old bike back on the road.
Then I went sat with some friends, had a bit of a smoke with them and we yammered on for a while. I'd started on the MadDog by this point, so a slight fuzziness was setting in.
Into the other marquee, more MadDog. The band were quite good, more friends of mine were up and dancing, along with some pretty girls, so I get up and boogie along too. We got some pretty wild boogieing going on, I managed to get some more of my friends up and dancing along too. Some of them needed some persude-ing :-) I seem to remember dancing an enthusiastic tango with a nice enough bloke. He couldn't decided wether he faniced me or one of the girls I was dancing near, more. I don't think either of us really fancied him, though.
During the interval Jon's excellent disco came on. I just managed to get him to play 'Turning Japanese' and get dancing with 2 pretty girls at once (more friends) when the band came back.
I got a bit wilder and started to shed more and more clothes as I kept dancing and got hotter and hotter. The ex was dancing as well, there were a quite a few people up by the stage. I didn't know then, but they were going and getting each other from all round the site to 'come see the dancing fool running round in his briefs'! 8-)
I recall collapsing on the strawbales, next to the ex and showing her my newest tattoos, then throwing up neatly into the bin bag. I was 'assisted' LOL back to my tent (I think I dressed myself!) by some large mates.
I woke up saturday morning at 9am, wearing everything, including coat and bangles, except socks. Walking to the bacon sandwich stall I got some cheery waves and lots of smiles.
With fuzzy head and very dark sunglasses, onto the bike and back home. I was very probably techincally drunk, not a good idea and one I would very strongly discourage anyone else from doing. My reactions were slow and inappropriate at time. My brain was not proccessing information at the required rate or arriving at the correct conclusions. Totally bad news :-(
I got in to find a letter from the B-Ham girl, with a self-portrait on the back of the envelope. It was as she had described herself by email, mustache, bolts through the neck and big mole on the nose. Which made me smile. I stopped smiling when I opened the envelope and found a pic of her! Bl***dy hell she was gorgeous!! I was gobsmacked. 8-)
I rapidly washed and changed, grabbed some stuff and the pics, ran for the train. Which I missed by 3 seconds. The next train decided that Watford Station was a lovely final resting, and determined that at such a place it would die. And so did. A few passengers hatched a plan to get a taxi to the tube station, and tube into Central London. As no live train was forthcoming, I joined them.
I ended up in a taxi with an extremely friendly professional stand-up Glaswegian comedian named Phil, a foriegn genleman who spoke fair english, and an Asian lady who spoke no english but had a notepad with 'Euston Station' on it, that she waved at everyone she saw, including the taxi driver, who needed little persudeing not to take us all there (at £35!)
At Watford tube station we all got out, except that we could not get the Asian lady from the cab. She knew she wasn't at Euston, but couldn't grasp that an alternative method was at hand. A few minutes later she rushed into the station, we concluded the taxi driver had forcibly ejected her!
Phil & I hid in another carriage, as Phil was convinced it was the only way to avoid marrying her! He was a wonderful, chatty travel companion, with an interest in mordern art and Acid Brass music.
I was now terribly late for the H2G2 meetup at Hyde Park. I managed to spot the other researchers from a fair way away. I won't say more on that as Shazz extracted a promise of an article for the Post on pain of pain!
I made it home (in gently steaming trousers!!), changed again, bought some more MadDog and headed back to the rally site. The Gwyn Ashton Band played that night, but sadly not their best. If'n I say more it will be libelous, so I shall not.
During a set break I was dragged from my bench in the Out-Of-Control tent into the marquee. On being told to leave my drink as 'I wouldn't need it where I was going' I became slightly apprehensive. I was dragged to the front of the stage and, in front of lots of my friends and many other bikers, I was presented with the Glen Ford memorial 'Arse of The Rally' Award. I was very proud to recieve this award. Glen Ford was a footnote in no-ones life, I will write another entry about him.
The band came back on. We started to notice some fireworks going off in the nearbly village (there were no other houses for about 5-10 miles in any direction). 3 of us stood and saw a small herd of horses in the next field illuminated by firework light, an amazing sight. Less amazing when they started to get frightened :-( Kerry turned to us and said 'coo, it would be amazing to watch this while stoned', where Jon & I laffed lots. 'So' I said 'Jon, whats your 1st hand opinion on this?' :-) There must have been 10s of thousands of pounds of fireworks let off, by a very skilled professional. It was about the best display I have ever seen, and went on for many minutes.
Later that evening, while sitting back on the bench, a 5ft pixie walked backwards out of the darkness, mooned at us, and carried on. Since Brian was totally sober and I was mildy sober, we both blamed Pete for letting his flashbacks get out of control!
Sunday dawned foggy. Extremely foggy, giving the Twighlight Zone impression the world had been stolen. Slowly the sun came out. And out. And futher out, till we thought we were living in Texas!
With one marquee to collapse and pack, work proceeded in the burning, but welcome, sunshine. The other marquee needed cleaning and emptying, with all the straw bales to be taken out and stacked in the next field, to be used as horse food.
Assisting in this tiring work was a very small boy, about 5, with muddy legs and shorts. He was pulling the bales out of position, rolling them a bit, and then picking them up and moving them end over end. Stood up on end they were taller than he was, a trainee Henge maker. He pushed them over, picked up the other end, and moved them very slowly into the 1st pile, outside the marquee. He must have moved 2 or 3 like this, carefully considering and then shifting any object in his path, and lining the bales in the right place to roll them between the marquee's supporting poles. So we worked, and he worked, and he helped carry a couple with me and throw them on pile.
We moved the very last one and put it on the pile. Tired, we sat on them, and had the following conversation;
'So' says the small boy 'are we done?'
'Yes' I reply 'thats them all out'
'Did we do well?'
'very well'
'will you give me some money now?'
'what??'
'can you pay me for moving the bales?'
'no mate, we're all voulenteers here, this is for free!!'
'but, have you got some money for me?'
I laughed, and looked at him. I gave him a quid in the end, what else could I do? His sister (about 7) complained she hadn't got any more, but I told her that was the way of the world. If you work, you get money, this is the way it goes.
We also had news of some surreal roadkill. In the middle of the countryside, miles from nowhere, you expect to see the odd dead pheasant (they are unbelivibly stupid), perhaps foxes, rabbits, maybe a badger. Just up the road someone had killed a Peacock. Quite sad perhaps, but definately a damn wierd thing to find in the Northants country side.
The marquee down and packed and my tent the same, I set off home. In the glorious sunshine I had no choice but to take the back roads and make the journey last as long as possible! I love the winding English country roads (see Motorbiking by Moonlight) and in full May bloom it was a wonderous sight.
On one of the quieter road I took my lid off and just rode slowly along, enjoying the sights, the smells, the sound of the bike puffing along at low revs. I know I seem to have taken a lot of stuff off this weekend, but sometime you just have to, y'know?
Coming round a corner, I arrived at a T-junction with a major road. The same T-junction at which, according to reports, my good friend 'Auntie' Sheila was killed by a drunk driver, several years ago. I stopped and prayed quietly for a while, for her and Glenn, and all my other passed away relatives and friends. I experienced a very spiritual feeling there that I am at a loss to describe. It was not a cold, spooky feeling, more a 'warm' sensation.
I rode on home at an appropriate pace to the traffic, stopping at a petrol station for a pint of milk. Whereupon I discovered I had exactly enough change for 1 pint, no more!
At home I unpacked the bike and stuffed things back into various cupboards. Being at loss for anything else to do on a sunday afternoon, I grabbed the panniers and headed off the supermarket (a bit boring that). I also took my mobile, cos it's much more fun to chat while wandering around. I rang my friend Tory, and got more shocking news! Her boyfriend, my mate Hoots, had sold and was in the process of removing, his 'prized' VW Beetle.
Now, people buy and sell cars everyday, no worries. Except this Beetle has been rusting it's way into the ground ever since, well forever, yet Hoots always maintained 'its goot ah good injun inat mon' (in his not-very-Scotch-anymore accent) and that it was a valuable piece of automotive history. Whilst everyone else knew it was a rusting piece of cak.
