.
Hayling Island for breakfast.
Ok, the theme for this one is 'Be prepared'.
There's the usual check list, of course,what with the early start:
1) Faculties.
2) Wallet.
3) Selection of goggles/shades.
4) Phone.
5) Some idea of the route.
6) Another idea for a route.
7) Reasonably empty bladder.
Most of the above can be pre-prepared the night before, the bladder perhaps dealt with just before departure.(Some still consider this as a punctuation mid blat, or perhaps the equivalent of a urinary ad break, who knows.)
'Faculties' though, definitely can only be assessed and calibrated on the day. The variables of the success of a night's sleep are not pre defined and the battlefield of indigestion, crying babies, urban Saturday night background revelry and police helicopter attendance to anything that allows them to get their hours up, can lay to waste the hope of finding a clear and stable platform from which to deliver an accurate set of driving skills come the hour.
Speaking skills are often a challenge at 5.30 am, let alone driving skills.Which is one reason why we've been meeting at 6.00 am (or later)! Ablutions and clothing choices are difficult enough, the hoped for aid of a forced caffeine intake so early, adds only to a scalp twitching bolus of thought processes log-jammed behind the eyes. Little actually happens, other than a flurry of indecisive attempts to gather things, dress, look for stuff, find stuff and look for stuff already found.
So often this is illustrated when finally reaching for the ignition start only to find an empty tumbler! Huh??
(Adds to above list:)
8) Car keys.
It's only meant to be for fun, but the stamina, skill and sheer level of thought required to accomplish a timely arrival at the RV and deliver the first 15 mins of a blat, needs a staggering bandwidth of processing capacity. A 'near level' infra red scan analysis of the freshly gathered Sunrise 7 formation at 6 am would show the hot spots not to be exhaust headers or heater outlets (for those that have), but the grey matter hidden beneath beanie hats and crash helmets!
Some would point to this being an age related issue, like an early morning onset Alzheimers or something? The younger members might place it as a beer related matter from the night before, 'cos they can still do that... to a man, we put it down to just not enough hours in the night. Nothing to do with having to get up too early, no, that couldn't be it.
The thing is, within moments of the start of the blat proper, we're straight in the pocket of this driving thing: cold tyres, an R300 Duratech to catch and a K-Series to 'cock a snoot at' (WTF?) fired with caffeine fuelled intent. It's a scary mix in the wrong hands. A bit of mental 'prep' helps to judge the movements of others around you, predict their lines through the roundabout and take in the road ahead.
The absence of cars in the night always leaves plenty of stuff in the road come dawn, things that were feeding are now food, carrion crows (and lately, jays) pecking at gristle without a knife or fork hop from their feast away from the hoovering 7 nose cones in a last moment game of chicken... (irony and broken parts of a joke could be assembled from this somehow.)
The low sun, whenever we venture eastwards, which is often, throws out shapes, shadows and deep contrasts. The feeble wink of brake lights up stand little chance of alerting the barrelling pursuant in the event of an unpredicted hazard ahead.
Bike engine Q plate (for Qwick Qwaig!)
How apt then, that the silhouette of a key south coast early warning defence facility should appear at the cool down stage at the end of stage 1 of the blat. (Not that apt really, just a way of tieing in a picture with some words.. I liked the unsympathetic military spikey skyline that it presents across the entire city below. No planning permission refusals here along the top of the downs then! Message to Whitehall : 'Couldn't you blend this array into the background as a copse of trees or a facsimile of a working iron age farm perhaps? Or... or disguised to look like some seagulls, quite a few, feeding or flocking maybe? Message back to Portsmouth Planning office , 'Get flocked'. HM Forces)
A big breakfast, at what was Delia's Cafe on Hayling Island, did it's restorative thing with a chance to re-tune the processor for another session of filtering out road spam to achieve that hi bit rate efficiency for the return leg.
Another wee before departure, all part of the planning and the process you see...and then another, for some ;-)
Which is just as well, for mid stage 2 of the return would have seen a 7 seat in need of valeting to remove the salt stains! After leap frogging our way through a pack of racing cyclists (?) (I think a 'mental' of racing cyclists would suit), two then chose to manoeuvre at the last moment offering this wheel locking moment for one of the blattists:
Now, one 7 is noisy, well generally you can here it coming...and two are really going to be pretty distinguishable from the background noises of a Sussex countryside going about it's Sunday morning, so why, oh why, pull out into a 'pair abreast' formation just when two 7's, reasonably 'on the noise', are about to overtake???!! The smell of rubber passes, the drip of relief is tangible but contained , the sense of anger persists for a long time.
Ok then, senses and observation skills are re-heightened accordingly.... and promptly we complete a 'spirited' set of angles exiting a roundabout to a white'n'striped audience that we hadn't invited !!
Help, we need some of Her Maj's early warning defence gear to help us out of this one, our self preservation instinct and previously relied upon 6th sense has deserted us! The run for Farnham, our usual dispersal point, would take on a 'get home under the radar' objective from this point on. Chameleon eyed, we'd watch the front and back, left and right. No assumptions as to any situations from here on in... well, not for some of us anyway... negotiating an 'outside lane hogging Alfa' would prove to be an adversary not so easily trumped in the high stakes of this day's blat:
The blue flashing grill lights bannished the lone 7 to the layby. I say 'lone 7', 'cos the debrief notes record that the 2 leading wingmen at the time were not to be seen for dust as the sacrificial tail end Charlie was left to his fate. 'All for none and none for one' in this case. 'Thanks for leaving me to the Rozzers you bastards', was the plaintive text.
So, the theme: 'Be prepared', and I'd add 'always' to that, has run throughout the morning and, if nothing else, has given a thread to this post! We'll take heed for a bit and then hope the luck of the 'Risers returns , poor 'Charlie', though...
Breakfast by the sea.
Post script: The 'officer' who pulled Charlie didn't in fact stop...apparently, this is highly irregular according to procedural practice. We suspect that his plodness had lunch to eat or more secretive matters to attend! Luck returns. Although the behaviour of the other two blatmen in their hurried escape, which too is highly irregular, has still yet to be presented to the stewards for enquiry!!
777(7)
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