Naked in Nottingham: The second half of the Goose fair trip

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 ā€˜run for home’. 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 ā€˜sea boot socks’. My toes looked as if I’d 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 didn’t have night buses in my village.

The ā€˜clubbers’ 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 they’d 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 didn’t 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 can’t 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.

ā€œGood morning, Sir.ā€

ā€œGood morning, Officers.ā€

ā€œAre you a local man, Sir?ā€

ā€œNo, just passing through.ā€

ā€œTravelling far?ā€

ā€œNear Southampton, down in Hampshire.ā€

He leaned out and looked at the bike and sidecar, draped with my wet-gear.

ā€œNo mechanical problems?ā€

ā€œNo, just thoroughly soaked, Officer. Once I finish drying myself I’ve some dry clothes to put on.ā€

He made some comment to his driver and leaned back out.

ā€œIn that case, Sir, we’ll leave you to it. We’ll be back this way in about an hour.ā€ The unspoken ā€˜Be gone when we get back’ 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. There’s not an October goes by when I don’t recall it.

Cold! Wet! And Naked in Nottingham!

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Ha ha - cool biker story. Pun intended.

Thanks for giving us the rest. Although I’m trying to erase the image of a hairy biker in a pink towel. Thoroughly enjoyed the tale.

The hairy biker without the towel would have been worse :wink:

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