Camping Weekend

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Barbeque and Camping weekend

6 / 7 th September 2002

This was our first attempt to pull together a camping and barbeque weekend for all the local members; the chosen site was the Bonsyde House Hotel in Linlithgow where we also run our monthly meetings. The Bonsyde is run and owned by Peter and Sarah who were a tremendous help to the club in providing the space to pitch our Marquee, parking for our bikes and a paddock for our tents, water and electricity.

Friday afternoon was the start to the weekend where a few of us went along to help in getting the Marquee erected. Jim had all the `gear` on his trailer but by the time he arrived he had managed to lose a table, it was a relief to find that all the sections of the marquee were still there and he hadn't lost any of that! It was an even bigger relief knowing the entertainment was cancelled, Jims tabletop pole dance…no table…no dance. We unpacked the Marquee and 3 hours later had just about managed to work out how the poles linked together and how the roof sections were laced to create the roof.

After much thought, lots of discussion and a beer we had it worked out…it was easy really…wait until Mike Easton gets here as he was in the boy scouts and knew all about erections!

Our attempts were so amusing that we even managed to get the hotel owner away from his desk for a closer look.

Once we had the Marquee sorted we put up our own tents in the paddock. Maureen and Brian were there first so they had first choice on where to pitch theirs, Brian was never a boy scout as he chose the worst possible place for his tent and had to move it later, just as well as the torrential downpour we had on Sunday morning would have had them sending out a distress call to the lifeboats to rescue them, all the rainwater was running to that end of the paddock. Alan as national coordinator had to have the best tent on display …Didn't anyone tell him that there were no prizes for best tent, not only did he have the largest one man tent we have ever seen but he also had an `annex` tent for his cooking.

Despite having all this luxury and doing his own cooking Alan managed to get an upset tummy on the Friday evening nothing of course to do with his alcohol consumption.

The few that stayed on Friday night were up early Saturday and putting the final touches to the Marquee and getting all the cooking equipment in place. My sympathies go to young Craig who crawled out of his sleeping bag looking cold and miserable then waited for his turn for the shower, he kept the water running for about an hour! Gave up! And had a cold bath not realising that you had switch the hot water ON! Jim Readman was getting the `treasure hunt` organised and timing the bikes out, the run was around the Lothian area and BOTH participants completed the course.

The BBQ was fired up around 5.30 this was organised by Bill and his wife Irene who done an excellent job in keeping up with the demand for burgers and kebabs.

Most of the members arrived around 6.00 pm in time for Bill's BBQ and washed their food down with pints of ale from the bar. By the end of the evening about 40 people had visited the BBQ, mostly club members but also a few new faces. As the night wore on most of the visitors slipped away as we settled around the small bonfire, which was kept well fuelled by young Craig. A few more beers and some entertainment watching Mike shuffle around the imaginary dance floor, yes Mike was having a ball…all to himself.

The remaining members sat around the fire drinking until the early hours, we were well looked after …even the local constabulary were concerned about future health problems particularly our hearing as they requested we turn down the music in case we damaged our ears. By this time it was getting complicated…Mike by this time had stopped dancing, Lynda and Brian were doing some sort of ritual round the camp fire, it must have been a rain dance as it started to rain, and Stan had great difficulty getting out of the Marquee.

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Sunday morning breakfast was provided by the hotel in the form of rolls on sausage and coffee, it was much appreciated, as most of us would have had problems trying to cook with the hangovers that were very much in evidence. Due to the adverse weather conditions it was decided that the Marquee should stay put until there was some dry weather in an attempt to dry it off, we eventually packed it up on the Wednesday evening under better but still threatening weather conditions.

Thanks to Stan Smith for this article

Camping weekend 6 / 7 th September