Swallows rally - day two

I woke up at 0745! There was just too much going on, the wind was thrashing my tent around, I could hear people talking and motorbikes revving and it was raining. I got up and pulled some clothes on and did what I always do on Saturday mornings at a rally; I staggered bladderfully to the ablution block.

After I had brushed my teeth and thrown some cold water over my head I felt a bit better, I knew that I would not be seeing Frank for the better part of the day so I wandered down to the CMA coffee tent to start the day.The wind was pushing the heavy laden clouds at speed across the area so the rain showers were brief, enough to settle the dust and force you to shelter in one of the tents along the main rally road. The vendors were doing great business.I had a couple of cups of strong coffee and chatted with the people moving through, unfortunately the mass ride was cancelled because of the weather. I had a breakfast "Schwarma", a pita bread filled with sliced beef in gravy with garlic cole slaw, let the others worry about my breath, I wasn't going to!

Over the years, and the rallies we have become friendly with Al who owns the Schwarma business and when he saw me standing in the queue he came out and called me around to the back, he served me there so that I wouldn't have to wait in the queue! How cool is that, good old Al. We'll see him at more rallies and eat many more Schwarmas.

I wandered into the main tent, the music was still blaring occasional good sounds as it had been right through the night, people were preparing for the concourse d'elegance and I particularly liked this really well prepared CBX.
If there is nothing much going on during the morning I will go for a bit of a ride in the area, but the weather put a stop to that one and after a cold beer or two I wandered over to Dalton's for a lunch. He was busy pouring shooters into his customer's mouths and I had to go through that ordeal before I could order my meal.

Frank joined me in the afternoon some time, I was taking it easy because the next day was the ride home and traditionally we "cool it" on the Saturday and go to bed relatively early. I did have a couple of beers though and gradually everyone converged on the main tent in the evening for the prize giving and the lucky draw.

There was no way that 8,000 people could fit into the marquee and the crowd spilled out on all sides, a vibrant happy bunch of bikers all having a jol.

This exhuberant fellow revved his engine until the tailpipe and the header pipes were red hot! I don't understand it, I wouldn't do it myself but it is part of a rally and they wouldn't be the same without the noise of bikes revving to the limit.
We eventually got back to our tents at about eleven, but I might as well have stayed up because there was far too much still going on, people laughing and talking, bikes revving and general partying. I did manage to doze a bit during the night but unfortunately my mattress is narrower than my shoulders so if I slept on my back and started snoring, my arms would fall off...........the mattress I mean. That does tend to wake one up!