27-30/04/2007 - FLIMWELL - FLANDERS WEEKEND

Event Location:

Flmwell

Event Format:

Drinking Challenge ;-)

Organisers:

Bunny etc

Winner:

No one could remember!

Fri. 27 April
The day was here at last. I had been looking forward to this event since the end of the last one. Bunny had been worrying about it for weeks. I arrived at the camp site just after 6.oopm, to find Bunny, Chris, Alex and Hayley already there. With the wind picking up I decided it was best to put my tent up whilst it was still possible. Tent up, fire lit, it was time to let the weekend happen. Stu turned up with the cooking tent and everyone mucked in trying to convince it to stand all by itself. This is just how I remembered it from last year, everybody itching to get their trucks dirty and Bunny pacing round the camp fire wondering if the Belgians would turn up. Dinner that evening came from the Chinese take-away in Hawkhurst, one of them anyway, delivered by Alex and Hayley. With eating taken care of, we waited for our Belgian counterparts to turn up...

Si and Stoo turned up in possibly the worlds smallest kit car and helped consume some of the excess alcohol we had left lying round, and we all waited some more. Talk turned to the laning trips of the following day, and Bunny doing some last minute panicking decided to ring everyone who was leading a route to make sure they could still make it. With darkness setting in the Roberts bros. set off at the speed of sound towards home, leaving the rest of us to wait for the Belgians alone. They arrived shortly after 11.00, in a convoy of seven vehicles including a 109" series 3 with the canvas sides rolled up and fairy lights all round the back. A few familiar faces and a couple of new ones, all smiling, produced all manner of weird and wonderful intoxicating liquor not entirely suitable for human consumption well into the night. Funny how history repeats its self.

Sat 28 April
The next morning started early all things considered. Alex and Hayley had water heated ready for tea and coffee before anyone else was up. The smell of bacon cooking did the trick though, and soon everyone was stumbling round bleary eyed, trying to remember where they might have been standing the night before when they dropped the things they needed to complete the days tasks. I decided to busy myself helping with breakfast, and was a slight hindrance. Apparently baguettes are supposed to be cut down the side, not the top. DOH! After breakfast more Twin Axle club members turned up and Bunny went into school teacher mode, dividing people up into the groups they would be laning in. By 10.00 am I was by myself. As I didn't have a truck I had volunteered to stay behind and meet the pig man (Bunny's twin brother). I had however convinced Carl to leave me his keys so I could gather some fire wood from down by the bridge.

The hog roast turned up at midday and was erected and cooking by 1.00. Dinner should be ready by 7.00 pm. There should certainly be enough of it, the pig was huge! Three o'clock came from nowhere and it was time for a power-nap by the fire. oOoo, its four o'clock, one more vital job before everyone gets back. I was in the process of building a rope swing when I got a worried phone call,

"You haven't hurt my car have you?, I can drive it home this evening?" "No Carl it's fine, I even re-spooled the winch wire for you" "Cheers, we'll be back soon, we're just having a drink at Bunny's house!" Is that usual on a laning trip? Turning to more pressing issues I set to recovering the handle for the rope swing from the stream. Work completed I returned to the camp site to wait for the masses to get back. First to turn up were Si and Stoo, in possibly the worlds largest Defender 90.

All the laning groups got home one at a time, everyone comparing battle damage and adventure stories, gathering round the fire, eagerly awaiting dinner. The hog roast smelled fantastic. It tasted even better. I forget how much I ate exactly, but it was a substantial amount and must have been nearing my own body weight. With the demise of eating came the compulsory / compulsive drinking. When everyone was too hammered on beer to care what they were drinking, the duo of Bunny and Stavie (I think that's how he spells his name) handed out shot glasses (made of plastic, for safeties sake I assume) and filled them with god knows what. Stu was following the bottles round the fire to ensure he didn't miss a flavour. I retired around 1.00 am, by the looks of it someone was going to need to be awake the next day.

Sun 29 April
Stumbling from my tent on Sunday morning, heading in the direction of coffee, I heard a voice I hadn't expected to. Someone had lent Stu a head for the day, he was up and about already, to even his own surprise. I met Alex and Hayley in the breakfast tent, hard at work once again, and put my new found baguette cutting skills to work. There were more of us this morning, but not everyone was hungry for some reason, so there was plenty to go round. Come 10.00 everybody was lined up at the gate to the off-road site and ready to go looking for the punches Chris had laid out. By 10.02 I had borrowed TK's 90 to pull out J's discovery. I spent much of the morning looking through a view finder, and followed Si and Stoo round looking for people who were stuck so we could point, laugh and take pictures. Somehow we managed to completely miss Chris' bent drag link. He managed to make a banana out of it, remove and straighten it, and put it back without leaving the site. Top effort.

By midday my walking companions had left for home, so I saw the afternoon out spotting and co-driving for James and Kayleigh who were trying to bury their disco up to its CB arial in the pond. Chris and his shiny new 90 to the rescue. A winch recovery later and J was disappearing into the woods in search of more punches. My attention quickly turned to Stu, who had ridden into the site on, and promptly fallen off of, his mountain bike. Stu decided exercise is bad for him, and he went to fetch the 130 to pull J out of his latest predicament. I tested Stu's bike for him by riding it through the woods a few times, and fell into the camp site at about 3.30 pm, to find the Flanders peeling potatoes and making chips out of them. Result.

After my late lunch I was about ready to do, very little. I had been hit with the tired stick. I pulled on some clean clothes, the ones I hadn't worn yet because they were buried at the bottom of my bag, and sat in someone's chair by the fire. I did take a chair but I don't remember sitting on it all weekend. Having sworn only the night before not to eat anymore pork this year, I was surprised to find myself eating ribs off the BBQ for dinner, but they were very good. These were followed by peppered steaks, salad, sausages and a potato dish with a very complicated name. I had eaten too much again. Still when I noticed my chair being un-sat in, I managed to rush round to it, pick it up and drag it over to where I had been sitting, make room for it and quickly sat down in a puddle of orange fanta. There had been an open can of drink in the arm rest, which had emptied its self when I picked the chair up. The chair I had been using was gone. It was clearly time for bed.

Mon 30 April
The last day. There weren't many of us left. Most had taken off the night before. Stu was still hobbling from his mountain biking injury the day before, so I offered to wash his truck whilst he packed away his tent. Fond farewells were said as the Flanders guy and gals rolled out at about 9.30. An hour or so later and Stu's truck was clean, ish, and we filled it with everything that wouldn't fit in anyone else's car. This was it for another year. Good memories rekindled, I would be back next year. Thanx to everyone who turned up and made the event the success it was, and thanx to Bunny for organising another top weekend.