I didn’t do Stapleford last year as I was busy eating jelly and ice cream and riding along on Thomas the tank engine, We were to rendezvous with the Shooters in the lay-by on the A6 but first I had to pick up Charlotte from home. I pulled off the drive wondering just where Charlotte was going to sit let alone where we’d put here bag of clothes and sleeping bag, you see the old 130 was loaded to the gunnels! That soon became the least of my problems as pulling out onto the A6 I suddenly realised progress was going to be slow, but then I should have realised that judging by the look of the truck and trailer!
We met up with the shooters and I agreed to lead as I had already suffered the first breakdown of the day loosing indicators on the trailer, before we left Liz announced “I don’t tow as fast a s Leaky!” so we took things steadily and arrived at campsite just after 1.00pm to be greeted by Jez and a plot of grass 5’ tall that I was sure we were supposed to be pitching a tent on!, Jez confirmed this, and over came Nigel on the railways not so fine example of an old Massey 135 complete with brand new side arm mower with floating bed and 4’………… oops sorry I’m getting carried away with all things machinery!
So Nigel had cut the grass we’d had a cuppa it was time to put up hotel Coley my new tent there were less than impressive instructions in the bag but luckily I’d watched a video on the good interthewotsitdodah before we left, construction was piece of cake and soon the shooters were parking their van up alongside us it was at this point I made the mistake of asking which one was James and which one was Jeremy as it did resemble Top Gear goes caravanning! (Only kidding) Once they were set up Carl and myself set about the arena fencing then we received the call to say the Leakes were mobile and Emily the family Sat-nav estimated their arrival in 20mins, we retired for a cuppa and sat outside the tent talking when all of a sudden the silence was broken by that familiar sound of a twisted exhaust and a 110 pulling hard, yep they were here and within the blink of an eye Iain had Hotel California backed up levelled and operational, I personally think this was down to the fact that take away time was upon us, so us males the hunter gatherers of the species set off in Dreadnought at warp factor 15 to find food, now should any of you turn right out of the site in future I’d like to point out the Hump after the first bridge is worse than the bridge itself if its hit at speed in a 110. I know this as there is now a rather large dent in the roof of Dready and I’m now 2” shorter than before! Yep head room is in short supply in the back of Iain’s motor. We arrived back with fish and chips and various kebab meats had tea and retired to our beds as we had decided we needed to be up at 6.15am, who said this was a holiday?
Friday dawned early and we hitched up Birdy’s trailer and went off for the skips, stopping off at Marshals on the way back to spend some cash. We then erected the party tent and I moved Jaffa ready for the arrival of more Tin Tents on wheels, yep Mr Bird was daft enough to leave Jaffa’s keys and instructions on how to start it with me! Was he nuts? I mean Jaffa that runs on the funny petrol stuff that I put in me chainsaws how can a land rover run on that?! Seemingly rather well and if it wasn’t for a turning circle worse than a 130 towing the QE2 Birdy may well have been out of petrol on his return. There was a steady influx of traffic and club members all day as we started erecting the patchwork quilt and knotted embroidery disaster the British army call a tent!! As we retired to light the BBQ for tea, the BBQ Carl had so expertly assembled during the day, Mr Chapo aka Mr Bump arrived; apparently Mrs Chapo had stopped off on her way for a quick game of football with the Aygo! So while Chap tried to find out the score of Aygo football myself and Mr Bird helped set up the Chapman residence, its at this point I’ll point out poor old Chap still hasn’t got the hang of loading his van and we played a quick game of see-saw before we were told off! (I don’t really know if Lindsey was playing football, I made that up as that’s what they are doing on Dave as I type!!!!) So everyone was here and we were ready for tea oh no hang on Mr Bond & Miss Webb hadn’t arrived but hey it was only 21.30 it was still early yet!!. Then out of the dark evening sky 2 little yellow dots appeared through the gloom ah it was the Master of all things Ugly and what’s more the Master of Ceremonies for the weekend Bond Himself! I left the Bond setting up his van, usually I’d help a mate but someone that Ugly frightens me on a dark night and it was way past my bedtime!
Saturday arose at silly O’clock for us so we decided to head off to Melton in search of a small boys birthday present while the rest of the club knocked back the ZZzzzzzz’s. We arrived back to find Chef Leake cooking away and after a hearty breakfast of bacon we headed off to the arena to set up the stand. It was a long hot day and really not a lot happened that was worth writing about so I won’t! But by the end of the day we had a stand and an off road course. Its worth noting that it was dry and sunny on Saturday!
Sunday dawned all dark ‘horrible and wet, so I set about setting the 130 up on stand and helped Iain park the Range Rover up on logs for effect, now a top tip for you all if your ever lucky enough to own a latest generation Range Rover, don’t buy magnetic signs for it cos they won’t stick!! As we had breakfast the weather brightened up the workshop area filled up and birdy went for a not so dry run around the little course we’d made hmmmmmmmmm, last nights rain really hadn’t helped and for the side slope over the trailer Birdy needed the help of some waffles and our Mr Chairman acting as counter balance by clinging onto the roll cage off Jaffa for dear life I’m not really sure how Tim got this job I think it was just the wrong place wrong time. I mentioned earlier Mr Bond was master of ceremonies for the weekend and that meant Carl had to give him a mega phone! My god we were going to regret this! It had to be said for the first display of the weekend we had a modest crowd and one small boy found Gavin burning bushes out more fun than watching Jaffa, Birdy can we have some flames next year? They seem to go down well! Luckily Gavin stopped setting fire to things and birdy had bigger audiences for the rest of the day. Being late Sunday afternoon we were reminded tomorrow we had to show a winching demo as well as driving, but winching is boring so while Mr Bond drew up ideas to roll a Jaffa Charlotte went to track down the ATC Cadets who were game for a tug of war at 2pm on Monday. Sunday evening we had the entertainment laid on by the social secretaries of Mr Shooter & Bond a quiz! Well it has to be said our team lost in spectacular fashion not helped by our buzzerman being pre occupied with something at the other end of the tent and Mr Bond being deaf in his right ear!!
We retired to bed around 11pm however it appears the Loughborough Land Rover Club have a party animal contingency that partied on till 3am! I do believe that apologies for awaking half of the club up have been printed in the national press, but anyway it was amusing watching them grovel for forgiveness on Monday morning.
Monday was a bright and sunny day and Birdy had company in the arena, I’m not sure how but Mr Bump had managed to break free from the workshop area when no one was looking!-Eeeeeeeeeeeeek! It wasn’t long before Bondy was bringing in the crowds to watch the display and Mr Bump didn’t disappoint as he managed to reverse into a bright orange and blue fence much to the delight of the crowd! A collection tin will be passed around at the next club meet to send Mr Bump to spec savers please give generously. We had some lunch and then it was time for the winching demo, we used Iain’s motor for the tug-of-war as it has all the trick bits and the ATC did a cracking job but well I need to keep my street cred so its still Me and the landy as winners! The cadets took up residence in the arena until they had got their way of having a tug-of –war against club members. This led for some careful selection and our man from the CCF old lieuwotsityrank he is Mr Shooter being the anchor man for LLRC, well this was gonad be easy, oooooooooooooh no boy can a bunch of kids work hard and it wasn’t until the Land rover club found low box and some extra grunt we managed to overcome the little blighters!
Part two of the winching demo dawned so we positioned Jaffa with Iain’s motor one side and chapos the other we slung the roll cage of jaffa an attached winch hooks Iain winched Jaffa right over to one side, Now it was Chap’s turn to pull him back……………………after a moment of frantic button pressing it appears Chapos winch doesn’t work!! Oh joy while steam erupted from birdy’s ears Iain managed to lower Jaffa to safety and thinking on his feet Bondy announced another driving demo!. There were no more dramas and the 4pm driving demo passed off without a hitch. No sooner had Jaffa stopped rolling we were straight into “Knockdown” mode we had everything down and away on trailers in 55 minutes including a tent and telegraph pole bridge, come to think of it old Bondy excelled himself there he was swinging that sledge like a man possessed and I’m sure if he’d had another he would have swung one with each hand boy was this man keen to pack up! In fairness we all were and as Iain blazed out with van in tow I set about checking the straps on Jaffa and set off to drop it all off at birdys. We arrived back later and loaded the skips said our goodbyes to everyone leaving that night and settled down to a takeaway with the shooters. We awoke on Tuesday took the tent down and came home to a day of unpacking and tidying away that was Stapleford 08! Will we be there next year who knows? We’re still recovering!