A night run for kebabs, handling lunch and breakfast in America ...
Another weekend with a good forecast, we must have done something right and already the BlatMile count so far has easily exceeded the whole of last year. This is good.
Friday 7pm
Solent 7's have their monthly meet on a Friday evening and the last one that the Sunrise Sevens attended spawned the eminent Brighton run to the Market Tavern, so, rude not to put in an appearance really. The chosen pub, being Winchester way, offered a choice of 7 roads that would have CBB and I chasing pheasants and rabbits off the tarmac whilst in search of somewhere from the 17th century, that we would discover to be serving drinks in the same time frame, but at prices from the 22nd century.
£3.72 for a lime and lemonade?
I'll buy a bottle of Scotch and be done with it sir!
We were first on the bouncy castle tho'.
A fine evening in the country, but the shadows lengthened and faded and girls reached for cardies. Not having reached for the menu early enough to be served inside the predicted one and a half hours, and, unable to find an unoccupied cardie (sp?) to chew, I now needed a BlatSnack.
The mental route map ran through the options: Brighton really equated as too far east from where we were to head for The Tavern, cop out really, but the rest of the weekend was looking good to blat, so we put that in the 'next time' folder.
Loomies had a late night opening on a Friday : we had a look, but not that late apparently. CBB's petrol bomb progress singed the way clear back to Alton and Odiham, and by reversing the tried and tested route, lent a different aspect to that forgotten bend and missing dip or two.
This led us to the modern day roadside coaching in : The kebab van.
Glorious in its welcoming bath of neon light and flickering telly, (how do they manage to receive live turkish boxing on a coat hangar aerial?), it's popularity measured by the exploded contents of the wind blown bin.
I am not convinced that the kebab van equivalent of the McD litter patrol doesn't actually fill this bin before they start the evening and then spread more of their produce liberally about the road and pavement as an enticement to the passing motorist, drunk, policeman and... er... 7evener into thinking 'oooh, must be good, look how many people have eaten there'.
The funny cars looked more than usually so amongst the moth like arrivals of Saxo modded boygirls and out-of-body-clock-synched wedding guests in BMW's that all came, fed and were gone in the time that my chicken shish was born, lived briefly and was scattered on the pavement in customary approval.
The two stroke yamaha backed conversation in stilted boxing from behind the counter, suggested that our cars had engines that were 'a bit small innit'. The chilly size/strength ratio example I gave to illustrate the theory was lost amongst a brilliant piece of between flickers boxmanship and, with a new arrival of lexus light clusters, we moved on, scattering wrappers in appreciation amongst the fallen remnants of my simile!
Next,another 10 miles and then the flip side of nightstops, the Wild Bean Cafe (It's a BP garage isn't it, sussed that early on). Latte's and doughnuts under more bright neon ... we've been here before, and so have the lexus-lens kids and wedding guests et al. But, needs must, every blat sortie requires a de-brief and sustenance and this stop has petrol too, of which Bob likes to make full use.
A further loop south back up to the Hog's Back, not a food reference this time, a well named road, will conclude part 4 of the evening's blat. Bob and Miss England salute their departure with a ball of flame (blue then yellow) and make off back to Alton and Basingstoke...they like their petrol used in a blat of 5 parts.
Saturday: 10.30 am.
A lie in! Didn't sleep well ... the kebab and coffee that are essential Nighblat ingredients don't make for an easy shut down of all systems just 'cos it's time to sleep then. Good job that the Sunrise blat is planned for tomorrow. Truth being that the 7 Club Handling Day at Dunsfold is today and we'd planned a run down to have a look...20 mins away hardly constitutes an early departure and most of the other Sunrisers are either on half term, having girlfriends or 'off air', so any sense of my lack of commitment to the Sunrise cause this morning goes unoticed.
The sun shone.
Right, breakfast time, and a blat to Dunsfold...what do you eat after a short and defensive struggle through the grid lock of Guildford that soon turns any driving ambition to thoughts of bacon and egg rolls instead?
A bacon and egg roll then.
And dispensed from another van...mmm. CBB assures me that his friend in the Health and Safety Squadron would take his chances from the mobile caterer over a budget restaurant anyday.
So, a bacon and egg roll is bought from a ten year old with burns.
Caterham 7's were put through their paces as bacon and burgers were fitted in faces.
The sun shone on some more.
Tea was next on the ingested catering list, Rob W joined us and we watched instead of 'doing' for once... and the sun shone a bucket load more.
To interrupt the BlatSnack thread , a mention must be made of the RS Caterham Levante in attendance at this handling day. £100k's worth of cereal packet shaped carbon fibre with a siamesed motor bike engine, making a mini V8, and throwing out 500 broken horse powers!
There mentioned it.
How big is it? How Much is it?
And man did the sun shine ... and so did I. Jeremy Clarkson and Co have clearly not put the coins in the ozone layer meter over Top Gear Land where we stood. The water bowser being used for the skid pan was looking like the only way of extinguishing the kilojoules absorbed by my nose and forehead. Clown like, I sought sanctuary in some shade by discussing alloy wheel refurbishment with a driving instructor in a Ford Focus :-/
The RS Levante continued tearing more seconds off the 0-60 test event, and more holes in Jeremy's ozone account , and there in we were reminded of the outcome for not being in banking (or even wanting to use them) , our cars being perhaps a tenth of the value of this thing .Yeah, but is he happy?
Compare the Cosworth powered CSR 260 ... a short reign as king of Caterham Hill with that of the Levante.
(If you're quick these vids will run in tandem to give a bit of a race thing!)
Time to go, I need an ambulance for my face.
Sunday 05.15 BST
Sunrise Squadron Scramble!!
Back on it, the face flames have been dowsed and the previous evening's tirade of clown abuse has left no lasting damage. Any DNA changes from the intake of radiation are not obvious in the simple requirements of left, right and 'go' at this stage. Maybe that comes a generation or two later, won't harm this morning's Sunrise Blat then, green light go!
The clear sky and cool air at this time of the day cleans the tubes, but it hasn't helped Andy (of Coastal Command) to get his kite to fly this morning. Somewhere in Worthing a X-flow cranks on it's battery to all the neighbours, for about 20 mins. The vinegar stroke that a good squirt from the coil would have concluded, was not to be. Andy retires from the mission and a wingman goes without. We've cleared his locker and stopped his priviledges.
Ian H, fresh back from holiday and with the sound of NIP's rustling in his licence, slots straight into formation. We RV with 'CBB and Miss England' (they are one and the same) in the Cow Car Park in Hook (where today some free range Aberdeen's stood and wondered as to X-flows and their comparably steamy breath and fluid losses).
Today the mission objective is to convert the previously blogged NatBlat route into a fully operational alternative to the Southern based routes. 80 miles north to Pangbourne, Didcot and back south to Basingstoke and home. Just as well Andy (CoCom) missed this one,to join us he'd have been way up on the carbon footprint profile thing and that. Somewhere a cormorant remains clean and thanks a silent X-flow in Worthing... just visible, under a webbed foot, the handle of the wire snippers.
The best bit of this route comes after 40 mins of light exercise through country lanes and small villages (see NatBlat entry), speed cameras and new found fondness of our permits-to-blat keep the pace even. Tom of the Tom has us repeating a triangular road section a few times as one of the satellites, that makes him do his thing, falls through Clarkson's ozone hole or something.
CBB and Miss E stop for some fuel right at the nub of the good bit, they like fuel those two.
He advises that the quality of top shelf literature is particularly rich and plentiful at this BlatStop. Which reminded me, where are we going to get the day's BlatSnack? (The blog thread re-aligns smartly back on topic.)
7.20 BST and all is good.
And so to the long awaited 'downs section'. Do you remember the cartoon road analogy?
Meep meep !
12 miles of coitus un-interruptus!
Yup, grab the adjective book and include all the balancing, finger tip, apex cutting, foot dancing, tyre grabbing stuff you can and spread it on the next 12 miles promised by T of T to the next roundabout... and it'd not even come close.
This is top shelf, plain wrapper, trouser bursting BlatPorn.
Sullied by our exuberence and self abuse, we stave off the inevitable post coital depression with the weekend's final BlatSnack at the 'hope it's open' American Diner thing.We're 'twixt Newbury and Basingstoke and, as we park, the blinds open and the door unlocks. 8 am .
Our two wheel half brothers are standing their machines on pegs and are already looking for strong sweet tea, presumably after having ridden the crest of a continuous accident all morning, as is there wont.
Waffles, maple syrup and eggs to the sound of 'doo wop' surrounded by 1950's ephemera add an unusual culture shift and time travel conclusion to the main part of the weekend. Or does it?
Consider: The car that is our star in this blog was first set free as the Lotus 7 in 1957. This 50's roadside diner, in it's optimistic deco revival make up and period enthusiasm, represents the wave of response to the post war austerity years that helped give possibility to the man on the street for a better and brighter future. It's a dead cert that, across the country, a brace of Series 1 7's will have stopped for breakfast and coffee at similar roadside stops on a Sunday summer morning,in the same way, 52 years ago ... and every year since.
So here's an image that says something about car design, enthusiasm, hope, simple pleasures and BlatSnacks :
...and still the sun shone :-)
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