Nottinghan Goose Fair, the journey home
On the last day it rained relentlessly. Already thoroughly soaked I spent a few hours huddled in my tent, and when the rain finally slacked off just before midnight, I decided to ārun for homeā. Hampshire had never seemed so far away.
I swapped my sleeping bag for still-wet riding gear, clammy as a corpse, packed my tent in steady drizzle, then rode off into a steadily increasing downpour. Within a few miles I was seriously cold and had to do something about it.
At a wooden bus shelter I grabbed my plastic sack of dry clothes from the sidecar, and ran up and down the bus pull-in until I was warmer and starting to steam. But it was still raining. Sitting in the shelter I tipped water from each boot and wrung out my thick āsea boot socksā. My toes looked as if Iād been sat in a bath for weeks.
Suddenly it stopped raining and the almost-full moon lanced into the shelter like a spotlight, leaving me in inky blackness whenever a small cloud crossed its face.
I spread out dry clothes, from socks and underpants outwards. Bare toes cringing from the chill concrete floor I was undoing my waxed cotton jacket when I heard a bus! At the wrong side of midnight? Was I hallucinating? We didnāt have night buses in my village.
The āclubbersā bus tipped several cheerful locals out onto the pavement. Well insulated with alcohol, bubbling with residual enthusiasm from a night well spent, and highly amused to find a sodden and barefooted biker in the shelter. Some of them chatted awhile and then I was alone again.
Quickly stripping off my overtrousers and jacket, I turned them inside out and draped over the handlebars in the hope theyād drip dry a bit.
A minute later I was naked, wringing out water from my clothes as the wind whistled around my exposed and water-wrinkled parts. I grabbed a towel from the sack. A pink fluffy towel. I didnāt choose pink. Honest! It was the only towel readily available when I was cramming the bag at the last minute before leaving home.
As I dried myself I heard another engine approaching. I canāt be the only one who claims to recognise the sound of a police car engine.
They drove past, reversed, and the passenger opened his window. What followed was typically English, neither side acknowledging the oddity of finding a big hairy biker stood at the roadside around 1am, on a freezing October night, with a pink towel held precariously around his otherwise naked body.
āGood morning, Sir.ā
āGood morning, Officers.ā
āAre you a local man, Sir?ā
āNo, just passing through.ā
āTravelling far?ā
āNear Southampton, down in Hampshire.ā
He leaned out and looked at the bike and sidecar, draped with my wet-gear.
āNo mechanical problems?ā
āNo, just thoroughly soaked, Officer. Once I finish drying myself Iāve some dry clothes to put on.ā
He made some comment to his driver and leaned back out.
āIn that case, Sir, weāll leave you to it. Weāll be back this way in about an hour.ā The unspoken āBe gone when we get backā warning delivered they drove away.
With a full set of dry clothes under my still chilly wet gear things improved immeasurably. The standing water was splitting under my wheels like a bow wave but the sky stayed clear for the rest of the journey home.
I wonder if those two coppers ever recall the moment. Thereās not an October goes by when I donāt recall it.
Cold! Wet! And Naked in Nottingham!
===
