Morecambe (March 28-30 2003)
Bloody typical, i was supposed to finish work at 1pm on friday but didn't get away untill after 3pm, so myself and dawn finally pointed my scooter northwards at about 4:30pm. The M6 was, as usuall, chocka blocked with rush (2)hour traffic but there is something satisfying about flying up the middle of the traffic jams, pass all the cars whose drivers had previously gone tanking past u with a big grin on their faces. Funny how, when you pass their stationary cars, they are no longer grinning. Anyway the journey up the M6 was pretty well uneventful untill we approached Lancaster, when Andrea from Calverton Hornets caught up with us and we then took turns at trying to find our way to West End road to find our respective digs. We found them quite easily, although i think it was through pure luck rather then by our knowledge of Morecambe, arriving at our hosts front door at 7:45 pm, so excluding the half hour we stopped at knutsford services, the journey had taken us about 2 and 3/4 hours which wasn't too bad. Bags dumped we were off to find the nearest offy to get our supplies for the night and once the vodka and orange juice had been purchased we went looking for the Carleton for the nights festivities. We found said club on the sea front and entered at 9:30 pm and immediatly wished we had gone in the pub instead as there was about 20 people at most in there. Still on the bright side we had no trouble finding a table to sit at. Within an hour the room had filled out nicely and myself and dawn had been joined by kaz, tony "one shirt" and their mate chris, as well as a few others. Myself and Dawn were already missing our ii family, although Savage appeared a bit later on to cheer us up a bit. Having drunk vodka and orange in plentiful amounts i set off to mooch around the room to take some photos and have a natter with the large amount of familiar faces that were now in the room as well as a few not so familiar faces. The music in the room also suddenly appeared to go up in volume by about 50%, (either that or the wax in my ears had suddenly popped) and the familiar tunes were aptly being played by our weekend hosts, the Morecambe Trojans and v.f.m. A happy surprise was to find a shutter opening up just behind where we were sitting to reveal the food bar. As Dawn then pointed out i nearly always seem to be near the food bars, cheeky sod!! We left the do about 2am and went back to our digs, via the local pizza place (Dawns idea not mine, but i didn't argue with her) and put our weary heads down for the night. Saturday morning started off at 8:30am with Tony "one shirt" banging on our room door to get us up for brekkie. How rude, i mean who has brekkie at that time in the morning after a vodka fuelled evening. So having filled up with our hosts fine cuisine and chilled for an hour trying to get all our senses back from the previous evening, it was on to my scooter (well it was a long walk and you know i hate exercise) and off to the dome for the custom show and parts fair. The first port off call at the dome was of course the bar to stock up on lager, well it had been 8 hours since our last drink. At the bar we bumped into Neville and Lynne from the Walsall area, so after a small chat we went off to have a look round. Savage appeared to inform us he was selling a few pairs of new docs , which Dawn agreed to buy a pair of. Having agreed a sale Savage went off to to look for other punters. Savage later assured us that dispite the fact we kept bumping into him every 5 minutes he was not keeping Dawn in his sights untill she'd bought them. Dawn somehow persuaded Nick from Ital scooters Worcester, that in exchange for going round handing out his flyers, she would get a free t-shirt, so as Dawn went off to earn her t-shirt i went to look at the 20-25 scooters in the custom show. I must admit that there were some pretty smart scooters in the show and was very impressed by a few of them. However, having had a look outside and up to the prom where all the punters scooters were parked, i was miffed that no-one was looking at my new simpsons side panels so now, with a big sulk on, went back inside to drown my sorrows. We joined Tony "one shirt", kaz, Chris, Haddick and their mob by the window which gave me an ideal vantage point to watch my scooter as people were now starting to look at my rather rude side panels. After a spot of lunch in the rather dodgy ship inn we bumped into some familiar faces as we were accosted and dragged into breezers bar (reluctantly... honest) by members of the Wreckless Souls S.C. including Numb-bum and her other half Bob, We were also pleased to find, former Scootering magazine photographer, Andy Bayes in there too. Morecambe was to be his last rally as the lucky bugger is off to Bermuda for 3 years. My time was now being taken up by catching up with our old friends, drinking (of course) and constantly checking how the super red dragons were doing against that giant of a team Azerbajan (we won 4-0.. ..Portugal here we come). After being dragged forcibly around several ale houses we settled in to a small downstairs pub on the prom, the name of which escapes me but i think it was called Davys Locker. Of course by this time England were playing and i seemed to upset a few people by cheering for Liechtenstein. The most important part of my interest was at half time when they showed the highlights of the welsh game and i got very upset with the barman when he decided to turn over just as craig bellamy was getting the sweetest of touches after just 35 seconds to score our first goal. After some heated and violent verbal abuse from me aimed at that ignorant barman, he turned back just in time for the second of our 4 goals. After that it was time to get back to more chat with my mates. Boro stu arrived with his mates and we all sat around having a chat. Dawn by now had left us and returned to the digs for her power nap. Meanwhile, the quiet couple in the corner introduced themselves as Andy and Nikki from Oldham, which amused Andy Bayes as his wife is called Nikki as well. The Oldham couple where on their first rally in 17 years, so i did the ii thing and made them welcome to join us, although by now the England game had finished and all the Souls lot had dragged themselves away from the telly to join us, so they properbly wished they had stayed quietly in the corner. After returning to my digs to wake Dawn and get changed, as well as to meet Jane who had now arrived, we set of for the short but still ardeous stroll to the Carleton. Despite the fact it was roughly the same time that we arrived the previous night, we were surprised to find a fair sized queue outside. Once inside we soon found some of the Souls who had joined up with that other mad lot, the Edinburgh Blues, so we said our hellos to more old friends and quickly got on with the main reason for being there... consuming vast amounts of alcohol. Angel had now appeared having suddenly deciding to come after all. I set off to take more photos and make more new friends. I was attracted by the Welsh flag on the back of a jacket and then proceeded to bore poor Phil from Rhyl for the next 30-40 minutes. I actually didn't notice that the band had started on stage untill they had nearly finished but managed to get a couple of photos of Long Tall Shorty before they came off. From what i can gather by what other people told me they weren't to impressive so i guess i can cross their name off the list of potential bands for brewers droop I was disappointed to see 2-3 minor scuffles start, which were rapidly dealt with by the v.f.m lads, as it had been a while since i had seen any trouble at a rally. Last orders were called just before 2am which seemed a bit early untill i realised, technically it was nearly 3am as the clocks had gone forward hadn't they. So off to bed we trooped, via our favourite pizza house and a chat with Andy B who was quietly sitting outside his b& b taking in the night air, finally getting to bed about 04:30 bst after sitting up chatting for a bit and stuffing our faces with slices of pizza and partaking in one last vodka and orange.......bliss. Sunday morning started with breakfast at 8 bloody 30 again and saying our goodbyes to old friends and being persuaded that we just had to go to Gingers do next week. So i pointed the scoot in a southerly direction and off we went. The journey back was again uneventful untill about 10 miles out of Derby where went on to have 2 small heat seizures but got home alright. So roll on Yarmouth for our next installment of scooter frolics where hopefully there will be a massive ii turnout and maybe even a few other Brewers to make up for the lack of you all at Morecambe. We really do miss our family when your not there. all the best.....ii.... Andy & Dawn