Form an orderly queue

Thank you to those of you who got the joke with my title from yesterday, and who went and had a look at my Warhol Chick pic on Flickr.

Today was my fourth jaunt down to the "Big Breakfast" which is a motorcycle meet that happens in Whitchurch at the Midway Truck stop. I didn't ride down, partly because the bike that I usually ride is still in bits as the petrol tank is made of emmental (its full of holes) and also because James isn't quite up to being plonked on the back of a motorbike for a 90 mile round trip. (I didn't ride LAST YEAReither, because it had snowed overnight and we woke up to about 3 inches of crisp frosty snow...Corin rode there though!)

Anyway, up early (8am - completely alien concept to be out of bed before 10 am on a sunday!) and we were just about to head off to pick Corin's mum up when we discovered that despite being on charge overnight, Corin's battery was flat as a fluke. Left him to it as he jump started it from his car!

Got to Corin's folks...didn't leave for 45 minutes, as Corin's Dad's bike subsequently conked out on him at the bottom of the road, so we had to take the car down to him, jump start it etc. Then I brought the car back, but Pete didn't arrive, until 5 minutes later when he walked up the road. Bike had stopped again and wouldn't restart. So off he went with the car, for the second time....we left him to it (on his instructions!).

Its a great drive down to Whitchurch, and on Big Breakfast day its awesome to see hundreds of bikes making the journey, knowing exactly where they are all going to.

Got there, ordered sausage butty for me with a big mug of tea and a bacon butty for James. James promptly scoffed his butty and I could see him eyeing up the remaining half of mine, so he had that too! His appetite is frightening at the moment ...impending growth phase I hope.

Mooched around for an hour, looking at the huge range of bikes, from WW2 classics through to high spec race bikes. Took 130 photos - whittled them down to 32 - Big Breakfast highlights. Was blown away by the number of people there - its the busiest I have seen it in the four times I have gone, and Corin and his Dad both reckon the same.

The blip image is of the queue of bikers waiting to ride into the truck stop slip road, but who were having to wait patiently as a huge lorry was trying to turn into the side road to go to the petrol station, but couldn't, because frankly every flat surface in the vicinity had been turned into parking for bikes. He wouldn't have got into the petrol station anyway because the overhead gantry was too low for his lorry, but this didn't stop him honking his horn furiously for a couple of minutes whilst everyone looked on and giggled. As I heard ..."two chances mate ...none, and sweet F. All" He eventually gave up, got onto the duel carriageway and waved a friendly goodbye to all concerned :-)

Got home around 2pm. Shopped, Cooked, filed a load of personal paperwork, shredded a load of junk mail and other such stuff, and discovered a 5 month gap in my pension payments which I have fired off a couple of emails about...no reason why the gap should be there....but it works out at between 600 and 1200 quids worth of pension contributions and 150 days on pensionable service that currently isn't being counted in my teachers pension or potential state pension. Not having that!

Contemplating doing the ironing now.

Maybe just a cup of tea and a biscuit instead.

Have great evening, whats left of it...