Tossin the slipper 5 (13th - 15th August 2004)

For two weeks leading up to the rally it rained every day. Not a very good omen for the weekend. We left it till the last available time to get the site ready and met up on the Thursday night before to put up the marquee. On that evening it was quite sunny to start with. We had hired two small marquees which we had originally had the idea to put together to make one big marquee. When we started to put up the first marquee we realized this was not going to be possible because of the way the ropes were situated. We have a marquee of our own which we put in between the other two which as it happens worked really well. The bar was in one marquee and the stage in the other. Anyway true to form it started spitting with rain as the evening wore on which became a torrential downpour, almost monsoon like. Luckily we had done most of the outside work by then and left just the inside stuff to do which we did before it got too dark.

On Friday we just did the finishing touches to the site, the trade stalls had set up and we put out the road signs. All we had to do then was wait for the people to turn up. It started out as a nice sunny day on the Friday but by about 4 o'clock it had started to rain a bit. People had started to turn up and there was a steady stream of people coming in. We had our rock disco playing in the marquee and people were drinking loads of beer.

Saturday was a lovely warm day and the sun came out for the first time in weeks. The ride out went off at 12 o'clock for a tour round the countryside and finishing at a local pub. They returned at about 2 o'clock. Just in time for the silly games or we may rename them the Pitbull games because he seemed to feature in nearly all of them. We had the usual tug of war, eating, drinking and dizzy sticks which were all very funny, We had tossin the slipper and a game called blocks where you had to make your way across a course by standing on bits of wood. The mens eating was funny because it was a melted mars bar in a nappy so when you opened it, it looked like shit. We couldn't get any contestants for the womens eating after that, can't imagine why. The rock disco fired up again when the games had finished. Followed by the band Hogwash. They were dressed up in seventies clothes and played some good seventies music. The prize giving and drawing of the charity raffle was also on Saturday night. There were prizes for the winners of the silly games, trophies for the custom show which were judged by members of the club who walked around the campsite.

Thanks must go to the trade stalls who donated prizes for the charity raffle. Thanks must also go to the people who bought tickets for the raffle, which was in aid of a member of our club who has been diagnosed with MS. We collected £228 over the weekend which has been used to help with his mobility and a donation to the MS Society.

Sunday morning was also sunny and it didn't start raining until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon which gave us just enough time to clear the site and pack everything up.

Click here to see some photos

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