The Soggy Moggy Rally

Early on last week a friend rang, saying, ' I've got those tickets you wanted.' 'Tickets? What tickets,' said Gman. ' The ones for the Soggy Moggy Rally that we discussed months ago, and it's this weekend,' came the reply.

Gman managed to get home extra early and had packed the trailer for the weekend away so straight after work and school on Friday, off we rode up to the Wood Green Animal Sanctuary near Huntington in Cambridgeshire. Took 3 hours and it was dark o'clock by the time we arrived. The field was packed with bikes, trikes, and tents of all shapes and sizes and live music filtered across the field from the beer marquee.

We managed to find ourselves a space and it was a case of all hands to the tent to get everything sorted so that we could go off to the beer marquee and find some friends. The band playing was 'Camouflage' with an extremely entertaining lead singer by the name of 'Big Al'. He really understands a biker crowd and knows how to play his audience well. What a laugh he is. It's funny to me that off stage he is actually quite a shy and unassuming bloke in his forties. He often sings one night and then the band stay on for the second night to party with the biker crowd. He even joined in the 'silly games' on Saturday. We last saw him at 'The Over the Edge Rally' on The Isle of Wight in May.

Gadgetgirlie and I retired early, well at just before midnight actually and left the boys to it. What a cold night though, and I didn't dare move cos I would find the cold bits. Oh and it was awful to need a wee in the middle of the night too!



Saturday morning was beautiful, just how we would have liked every morning to be during our summer holiday. This was our set up, we decided to use our old tent because it's so much easier to put up, just has a much smaller inside sitting area. Gman cooked us all a fab breakfast of sausages, eggs and bacon, with bread and butter on the side. No good for the waist-line but perfect for a bike rally.

Later on we visited the animal sanctuary, It was so sad to see all those dogs without homes. Seeing the cats was fine cos they are far more self-sufficient but the dogs looked out at us so hopefully, with big pleading eyes that seemed to say 'I'm the one you've been looking for, pick me, you know you want to'. It was sad to read of how some of them came to be there too, you know, older dogs out-living their owners and no longer having a home, marital splits, abuse and neglect, dogs not getting on with other pets in the family, or not fitting in with children. We had a look around the small animals section too and Gteen tried to persuade us that we needed an intelligent rodent in the house. We left empty handed.

We strolled back down the path through the woods to the rally site just in time for the silly games, the best we've seen.



First there was 'Moped Mayhem', basically moped racing around a figure of eight course with occasional crashes in the middle.



Then there were the 'sack races', with a difference though because as you can see 4 fitted in each builders 'yard' sack. Co-ordination was essential but usually lacking with hilarious results of all 4 toppling over and struggling to take one single jump forward in some cases.



Gman then took part in the 'Sledging races'. Once again they are slightly not what you would imagine. In this case both bikes or trikes would start on opposite sides of a round course and when the whistle goes the winner is the first one to catch up with the sledge rider being towed in front. Such a laugh to watch because often the rider would fall out of the sledge and the bike/trike rider would be totally unaware and carry on. We would all shout at him and the sledge rider would have to try and chase the bike, get back in and move off before the other bike drew level.



Then there was the punting, much more serious to watch as each team struggled to load each roller from the aft end of the punt to the front to keep the punt rolling forward.



Next was the 'beer bundle'. I heard this being called out on the speakers as we talked and walked around the stalls selling biker related clothing and bits & pieces. -'Only the first 10 bikes into the arena will be entered for the beer bundle,' I heard. I pushed Gman in the direction of his trike and told him to get on out there. He got into the arena as one of the 10 and his mate Phil then joined him as his runner. The idea of this game was that hidden amongst a pile of hay in the middle were 9 cans of beer, The bikes and trikes rode around in a big circle and when a whistle was blown each runner threw him/herself into the hay to find the beer. so a bit like musical chairs except that in each round someone was not going to find a can of beer and was 'out'.



Last of all was 'The Noisy gits' - a decibel test of the noisiest bike when the engine was revved. Again it was a race for the first 15 into the arena, but only those who thought they had a loud machine would bother. the loudest at full revs was 121. Didn't seem that loud really. Oh and in 1997 the legal limit was set at 80 decibels! Not sure if there has been a change since then though.

Then it was time to deal with all the Rally virgins...I have never before seen so many willing volunteers, usually 4-5 are coerced into taking part...but look at this lot....



Most discarded their shoes and accessories like watches and leather waistcoats, and one woman even donned a bath cap!



This years theme was 'Breakfast' apparently, which means that in all those buckets and bottles are all the edibles found at a breakfast table somewhere. There was a bucket of 'chocolate and croissants', another of 'fish savoury rice', (though I'm not sure who has that for breakfast), raw eggs, flour, tinned tomatoes, baked beans, cold tea and coffee and some other stuff that I can't recall now but equally yukky.



......And this is what they looked like at the end.....and there was only one shower in the mens toilets and one in the ladies. What a mad race there was at the end, some were chasing the club members who doused them, trying to give out free grubby and wet hugs, and others were chasing after friends who 'volunteered' them and the rest were racing for the showers!




Gteen is now allowed to have a go on the trike whilst on site. He is so pleased as punch and proud that he is old enough to be trusted, and is getting the hang of it really well, mind you... he does have experience of riding a motor bike so has a good idea of what to do. He was smooth and calm and handled the trike really well. I was more nervous than he was I reckon.....



The request by the sanctuary of all of us was that we come to the rally with a tin, or some kind of food for dogs or cats. This was the 3rd trailer on it's way to fulldom. I'm sure that the sanctuary staff are more than happy to see us bikers there for a rally if we can produce so much food to help towards the care of all the animals that the sanctuary take in.

During the second evening in the Marquee we saw more silliness in the form of 5 club members doing a 'Full monty' strip to music for the girls, and 4 female volunteers painting each others boobies with a smiley face with a prize for the winner.

I'd forgotten how noisy the rally campsites are at night, after camping in France for 3 weeks in complete peace. The second night was warmer but neighbours partied late and a couple of revellers nearby ended up having a barney resulting in a few choice 'f' words and someone storming off somewhere.



I'll finish here with a photo in particular for Meredic, who complains that there aren't many of me but plenty of the others..... I'll call this one.................. 'Around Robin', since that's what I am at the moment! Not a particularly flattering photo but obviously untouched and real.