Home »
Report on March 2007 activities
Here we go!!! Here we go!!! Here we go!!!
Well the season has started with the sun finally putting in an appearance to melt the frost sealing our garage doors shut! Ok so some brave souls have already have been out and about and loonies like 'sidecar Ed' ride in any weather but most wingers including Cheshire's own Graham & Carol with their newly triked 1500 the season starts now.
On 7th Ed & Q came to make sure we had not been abducted by aliens as we had not been out for ages. A chat with cake convinced them we were ok and during conversation Ed told us where Loopy and I could get two new wings going cheap! As it turned out the wings were attached to a parrot, and it went 'squawk' not cheep, but Loopy was delighted and a few days later Jimmy became part of our family.
The 23rd -25th saw Dave & Jan Shirt, Nigel, Jo, Loopy & myself in the Evans hotel in Llandudno for the annual Pennine & GMR weekend. This was a very good and well-organised event with secure bike parking that was so popular the whole hotel was reserved purely for 'wingers' who came from as far a field as Surrey! A nice touch was the sew-on patches commemorating the event handed out & soon to be modelled on my parka in Belgium. Due to working at Harwich on the Friday and after a 7 hour journey Loopy & I were late as usual and missed the meal but we were in time to join everyone else for the excellent entertainer, a proclamers look-alike who sang very well and got everyone dancing and singing along into the wee hours! (We wont mention our attempt at line dancing ok). On the Saturday the weather was beautiful with blue skies and little wind, perfect for the ride out. After the excellent 8am breakfast Nigel asked where the run was going and was soon 'volunteered' to lead the run which took in some brilliant scenery along excellent roads winding through hills and valleys with breaks in stunning locations for ice-cream & pop.
The Saturday evening meal was very good and we were amazed how many meals the waitresses could balance on one arm! The evening entertainment began with a raffle in aid of the Pennines charity. The Surrey crowd must have thought it was Christmas all over again as they won just about every prize on offer from a bottle of Bacardi to a MP3 player! Once again Nigel collected all the photographs of the weekend so far and used his laptop to put on a slide show.
The entertainer was a bit disappointing as he was little more than a poor karaoke who kept forgetting the words he was reading off a screen and was easily upstaged when Nigel gave us his 'Mack the Knife'. Maybe it was also the long busy day but we escaped to bed before midnight.
The Sunday morning was again bright and sunny with just a cool breeze so as we waited for Llandudno to wake up we all went for a welcome breakfast that was again very nice.
After breakfast everyone went out to explore the area with us NWW taking in the bracing air on the long Pier that stretches out into the sea under the shadow of the Great Orm. As we were now well into the goldwing state of mind we searched all of the typical seaside shops that sold all the usual novelty silly stuff where we found the perfect silly hat for our forthcoming trip to the Belgium Treffen.
Back at the hotel we filed into the dining room for our tasty and relaxing Sunday lunch. As the meal ended there was a bit of un-welcome excitement as some idiot walking past the hotel decided he would sit on one of the wings parked outside so his girl friend could take his photo but taking it off its stand he could not take the weight and dropped the bike with a pannier crashing onto the kerb stone! Luckily one of the wingers saw it through the window and stopped the man escaping. Instead of a ride on a wing he got a ride in a police car as the police took him away, probably for his own safety but hopefully to charge him as the bike was damaged. While we were eating Ed rang to say he and Q were coming to meet us as they were having a ride out with the sidecar so after lunch they turned up in time to meet most of the wingers while they were saying their farewells before heading home.
On our way we called at the Aldi motorbike-clothing sale and Loopy bought some excellent armoured trousers. We then headed toward the Chase for tea but of course we stopped for an ice cream on the way.
While sipping tea I let slip a rumour that there were some sweeties hidden behind the timing belts on my 1500. As expected Ed turned up the next day and pulled my old belts off! Disappointed not to find any concealed confectionary he put it all back together, along with the new belts I had 'switched' for the old ones, sneaky huh.