Daily Fixing and Riding Diary on an Ariel 2021

[Vincent.vanGinneke]

Good luck! and have a nice weekend

[Steven.Carter]

Good luck! and have a nice weekend

Cheers, we will miss our brothers and sisters from across the water for sure

[Steven.Carter]

Seems a nice peaceful rally, just me here

[Keith.owen]

Steve,
'It'll be alright'

see you there!

Keith

[Steven.Carter]

Day one Thursday 19th August.

I really wanted to do regular updates here but I just didn't have the time, plus the signal wasn't that great so I thought I'd catch up with it now whilst its still burnt into my memory.

Near an area we were using, two large skips were situated on a car park as the college are refurbishing many of the student rooms,. As arranged they were moved into a better place away from us, but ohh dear. All around where the skips were, nails screws and all sorts of rubbish everywhere. So our magnetic roller to rescue Even found a spanner

We did put many of the signs up the previous day but we thought we would rearange things to make it easier to find us.
Our Robin Tilly working hard plus kindly providing a single cycle parking space.

We got our registration tent up with Alan at the help with plenty of willing helper. His main worry was the room keys. They would be charged to the club at £55.00 if any lost. We would be handing out over 50 keys, would we get them all back??

We wanted to have a Tea and T-Shirts tent. Somewhere to get a tea or coffee and buy a tee shirt.
Luckily we found an outside electric socket along side a tap. Sparsholt provided us with a rubber protection for the power lead.

After getting everything in place all we had to do was wait for our first customer. Sparsholt is a large site with many roads and buildings which is very easy to get lost in, our guests didn't disappoint, we could hear a distant rumble which got louder as they got near then faded away as they took another wrong turning sorry, we did put signs out but they could have been clearer. Next time lads.
Alan our reception maanager has to go home in the evenings which means leaving the tent to me, this worries him as he doesn't trust me, he is of course correct this made getting meals organised with the meal tickets 10 miles away in Alans car tricky Just a minor snag.

Restaurant took a bit of finding but was a nice walk
Sparsholt college has some lovely views of the countryside.

[Vincent.vanGinneke]

another butt crack for free!
oeps , sorry! did I now loose my golden anorak?

[Steven.Carter]

another butt crack for free!
oeps , sorry! did I now loose my golden anorak?

We missed you, Vincent and all your mates.
I'll work through the days so you can have a "virtual" rally,

I'm still writing the one above so come back to it later

[Steven.Carter]

Back to reality,
My job today is at Breakspear crematorium, I'm a bit worried, I look and feel a little second hand after the weekend. I hope I improve a bit

[Steven.Carter]

Friday.20th August

We had our trip to Fort Nelson. They very kindly marked of an area for our bike parking.

[Steven.Carter]

Last Saturday 21st August.
Weather forecast was grim and very wet although we got up to grey and dry. A bit better then expected. But around 10.00 as we were getting ready for our ride to Sammy Millers a drizze set in. We didn't know it at the time but this was good news
Our ride was heading across Hampshire towards Wiltshire and then to head south across the New Forest. As we approuched the outskirts of Salisbury it got very wet, almoast depressing. But it didnt last long then as we got near to the forest it brightened up. Not at all what was forcast. All the bad forcasts had the effect of keeping the day trippers away. When we plotted the route back in May soon after lockdown we could hardly move at all. The narrow roads got clogged with cars. But not for us last week, a clear run through to the Museum where we were met by Jim who kindly allowed us to park in the museum courtyard.