Real Life!

[curiouswombat]

Real life is busy. Here on the Island it is the TT festival, which is, for those of you who haven't heard of it, one of the biggest bike festivals in the world, revolving around the most famous road racing circuit in the world. We have literally tens of thousand of bikes here at the moment - and I love it. The place is so colourful - all the bikes, helmets and leathers in wonderful colours - and those are the spectators I am talking about - the racing bikes are even brighter!

For me TT mainly means two things - it takes a long time to get anywhere, because the roads are really busy even on none-race days, and doing lots of baking!

On race days 37.5 miles of main road, which form the course, are, obviously, closed. So you have to take alternate routes, or just not go there for some places. Having thousands of bikes on the roads when they are open means the odd accident, and so sometimes you find the road you want to go down is closed by the police anyway whilst they clear up the road. That happened to me last week - a 13 mile trip took me 80 minutes!! The number of accidents per rider-mile is actually very low - most of them are pretty sensible.

Baking now - that's something else! My Church is right on a very fast part of the course, with a big garden which is a very good vantage point. So every year we open up the church to sell snacks, and allow the use of the loo, for the benfit of the spectators in our gardens - and also the benefit of the church funds! We sell hot-dogs, and hot pasties, loads of filled baps, crisps and pop (chips and soda!), and lots and lots of home-made cake. And of course the biggest profit is on the cakes - because they are all donated.

Daughter-dear and I also love going down to help with the serving - it is a great way to get lots of Church members involved as well, and D-d is especially useful as she speaks good German - and we get lots of German visitors!

So I have spent much of my non-working time either baking cakes or serving behind the counter!

I also accompanied S2C on his twice yearly clothes buying trip on Sunday, he now has some very smart new shoes, jeans and two neat casual jackets.

D-d has her last AS exams tomorrow - so tomorrow night we are going for an Indian meal to celebrate, and S2C can wear his new clothes!.

Comments

[spikesdeb.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I wish I was there; I miss my TT days! The smell of the hot engines, the screech of the tyres. *is all nostalgic* Great way to raise funds by the way, and if I was there I would certainly be coming a-snooping to see what goodies I could nab.

And I'm sorry I didn't comment on the second chapter of your Dawn story; I meant to but RL sidetracked me. I'm really enjoying it and can't wait for the next chapter.

Wave at a biker for me!

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The bikers were a bit like a hoard of gannets on Saturday - racing was delayed and delayed - I'm sure you remember the feeling. Having nothing else to do they drank gallons of tea and coffee, and ate cake by the mountain. I took in a carrot cake, only 12 pieces I know, but they were all sold within 3 minutes! Not to mention the 96 pieces of millionaire's shortbread that went between Friday night and the end of Saturday.

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

In a hurry, but remind me: wasn't there a "Ground Force" a few series ago (when Allen Titchmarsh was still involved with the show) involvins a property on the Isle of Man where part of the objective of the garden designe was to watch the TT?

Julia, hoping to get errands run before rush hour

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Yes there was - it was about 1 mile from our house! A new bungalow on an estate that I remember as fields - you know the feeling! The people sold it about a year after, as he was moving off-island for his job. The Groundforce garden meant that they put about £10,000 extra on the price, and got it!!

[desdemonaspace]

spikesdeb says there's a new chapter of your Dawn story??? How did I miss that?

What I meant to say is, are these motorbikes or bicycles?

Wanna read your Dawn story! *runs off*

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Chapter 2 went up on my journal on Sunday - and I may well let Chapter 3 loose on the world tomorrow.

Oh - and motorbikes, definitely motorbikes, like the one on my icon, which shows a racing bike going up the mountain section of the course. I tried to find a good link to a TT site - but found that a lot of them expected that you knew exactly what it was before you started!

[manoah.livejournal.com]

How fun! But don't let anyone run you down. We'd miss you. ;)

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

It's a rather horrible fact - but if any of them hit a car they do themselves harm, but not often the car driver - so as long as I stay lazy I'm pretty safe! My motto is 'I have all year to enjoy these roads, give them priority, because they only have a fortnight!'

[jerusha]

Have fun doing the baking and the sale, and good luck to your daughter on her exams. :)

[lillianmorgan.livejournal.com]

Here on the Island it is the TT festival,
My dad travelled all the way from New Zealand for it a few years ago, so I can appreciate its importance. Plus, the many photoshe brought back! :)
You're making me hungry with all that food.... *g*