London……crack of Dawn
Short Captains Report.
Why oh why for the love of all things Holy do i wake up miles ahead of the alarm – especially when i am only due to get a few hours kip? 3.15 and bleary eyed i knew that sleep wouldnt return. Of course under normal circs i’d quaffe an extra dose or two of caffeine – but large quantities of liquid in 7’s tends to cause an involuntary – urge to find hedges, and i’d already worked out that London is kind of devoid of that habitat. So with a swig of the black stuff and a few cigs i waited for the appointed hour when Richard and i would set off to meet Neil.
It’s unreal how quickly you can cover ground without speeding when there’s little traffic – Swanley junction to LBridge was seen off in 30 mins – ooops we’d better kill some time, so we did a quick pass of Tower Bridge before plotting up to await the others. In 1’s and 2’s they arrived – and as seden already the revellers wandered past – excepting Ms Chatty Bird, why oh why do they always spout utter bollocks? accompanied by her ‘beau’ – ‘err how fast is that mate, how many miles to the gallon how fast is that mate, how many miles to teh gallon – king ell – i wonder if his surname was Parrot? Of course Ms Chatty was demure of character, wandering amongst the pigeon shite in her bare feet with the wind whistling under her shortish skirt – at one point i was sure i heard the sound of the sea, but perhaps that was my mind playing tricks.
Talking of tricks as i hope will be revealed T persuaded Chatty to pose – whilst Rob the naughty devil took a snap or two of her chassis ( without her knowing )….much to the merriment of all but her and her Beau….
To the Blatmobile…..wagons were hitched, belts adjusted and off we set….there’s no way that its possible to describe the run with much meaning, let’s just say that we covered most of the things that we set out to, in some cases 2-3 times due to roads closures which fubared the at navs and due to the fact that 1 or 2 needed doing twice. The Mall was a definite highlight, bearing down on Buck House, Tower Bridge both times and seeng the sky lighten over the City ‘scrappers’. The Old Bailey, Westminster….all done and dusted…and so we stopped after frantic signals from Wingman Rob for coffee and ‘nature ‘ ….unfortunately for us it was a Mc’D’s,still as was remarked about Ms Chatty – any port in a storm.
By this time Richard had detached himself from the group and Bob T had cut and run, soon to be followed by Nick + Trevor, withe the rest of us forming a solid convoy ( for about oh, a mile ). Thereafter the hilarity of the splinter groups passing other groups was in evidence – the funniest for me seeing Neil and Dave ( dinger) heading towards Wembely where we’be just visited…it was rather like a treasure hunt where folks ended up at the right place – just at different times and possibly via slightly different routes….and yes hands u p, i hadnt thought about plonking a waypoint in the middles of the Rotherhithe Tunnel…..be assured i will employ that trick again now i can see the funny side!
The Ace was Ace in terms of history and a tick off the ‘do to one day list’ – do yourselves a favour and drink there and eat elsewhere…….if grub is a priority. Let’s say quick service, average food… We’d gathered our cars in a corner of thecar park as we were too early for the main kit car gathering, but frankly by the time we’d eaten and bantered i think most of us had had enough and we cut and ran – heading for the m25. What the heck was up with that i have no idea, stop start for miles until i had the brainwave to whip off at the m3 and shoot straight over the junction to rejoin the m25 – thus saving a few miles of stationary traffic – errr ooooops, i forgoty that at that junction you end up straight on the m3, so Tony/Rob and I had a nice detour and eventually went our own ways, after a bit more bantering.
Have to say that althought that was early i’d love to do it in the height of summer maybe 30/45 mins earlier – i think seeing the skies lighten as we three headed to the RV was a real highlight and i’d love to see that across the main part of Town……