Club Arnage

If we make it the Cheshire Cat some time over the summer, will the Liverpool Boys narrow boat be able to make it?

im in possible around 10-15 August?

I'm OK with those dates Kev, we just need to get the rest sorted out now !!
The food has changed as the last time I went it was pretty good , I think they've had a bit of a shake up recently.

Suits me fine - Friday/Saturday better than a weekday for preference, but can go with majority.

Will be good to catch up as didnt see any of you at LM this time... well except Neil - he popped up here n there!

F

 ;D


cant do the dates, as away early Aug till 21st Aug.  Any other dates or just have a drink in my absence.

"popping down now "  :)

I'm OK with first week in August

Sorry but like Neil I can only get there if it at the end of Aug. I don't know what the rest of the lads are up to.

One thing is for sure we are back to LM Mob handed next year ;D

well i can move to end of the month if that helps?

Ok - End of Aug is Bank Hol, so people may be away or busy - but at present looks OK for me.

Back next year to LM - MOB handed, that looks better than this year, seeing just the 2 of you on Sunday in the caravan all on your own  :'( nearly shed a tear  ;D

Well let's hope the canal boat will be along in August ;D

I'm ok at the moment for any Saturday in August at the moment.

Can't do last weekend (27th onwards) but can do weekend of 20th.

F

30/31 no good as I'm at Ty Groes. ( 17/18th  is Cholmondeley)

Next year could be (in the words of Jezza Clarkson) EPIC  ;D

Still dont know holiday dates though,the gaffers at Network Rail must be too busy counting their share of the 2.5 million quid bonus pot  ::) :o

Forget that lot, wrong month !! I'm away from August 23rd, off to Spa.

I am losing track here, but how many can do 21st August - I think this seems to be the date most can do?

F

im away 20th - 22nd August

No, not me either, I am away from the 16th August until the end of August.

OK - Wots everyone doing on the 1st week of Sept?

(message to myself, expect a few odd remarks)

I am away until 12 September - ok after that.

F

So how is everybody fixed for either Saturday 18th, 25th September or 2nd October?

Obviously the 11/12th is the LMS at Silverstone. and Fran's away of course......

OK with me.  (Who would have thought it would be so difficult to organise 6-8 people?!

F

On checking the family diary the last night, the 25th is a no go for me as it's the cricket club end of season bash.

so 18/9 or 2/10 for me

J

18/9- Castle Coombe, but OK on 2/10 !!

cant do any of them as im in spain  :'(

Time to resurect the North West Drinks ;D:

Looking for like the end of November 27th or the 11 December as the options for me. So it's looking more like a pre christmas drinky.

Will the liverpool Boys be around??

Any thoughts on venue/location?

Jules

I was about to bring this back aswell haha

I'm free either that I know & mobile all over so fine for me

I was thinking about it too!!!  Especially now Gordon can raise the tone of the car park....  ;D

I am clear either date, tho the November one would be better for me if its an even vote!

Not fussed on location, but might be handy to have accommodation on site or nearby.   ::)

F

Fran in sorry I have to refuse you again :P

November will be better for me aswell

sounds good idea, dates will have to check with boss,

but where?

Olton Park got any events going?

can we borrow/take/hot-wire GW's Fez? , be to go around the track.

You could at least wait to be asked Kev!!

F

November for me as the Dec date is in the middle of chemo so will be in a zombie state then !!

Yep Nov is better for me, cant do 1st weekend in Nov, as on an exam that w/e.

Anybody done this http://www.cains.co.uk/index/articles_view.php?article_id=46&main_cat=1&cat_id=89&first_art=true&logger_name=Brewery%20Tour

Neil there's a track day on at oulton park 30th October (Saturday) I'm going to and someone has agreed to let me drive there m3 csl  ::) they may not like me after I've been on track lol

I'll be up that way soon.....so I might just join you....subject to Niel allowing a lodger for a day or so!!

Hey Washy, spell his name correctly and he might let you stay  ;D


>Martini...LB

Well Martini,

I never trained as a proof reader....so can I be excused for the msipelling!!!

Whatcha Wishy, Will be great to see you "Up North". Neils got plenty of spare beds at "No-panic Towers" If it's still difficult climbing stairs after yr bump, Neil will be able to use the cherry picker lift you up to the first or second floors ;D

jules...the pins are working fine.....apart from when alcohol is added into the equation......since the bump I am very cheap to take to the pub(1 beer and i'm anybodys)And when I come up next month, i'll user a straw to drink from as I can no loner lift anything ;D

Have we agreed on Nov 27th then ??
 If so where are we going ?

Funnily enough, I bumped into Neil last night (not literally!) and we were just talking about this.

Date seemed to be agreed by all, just needed to sort a location.

Initial thought was somewhere central Chester, but not the same place as before, which was too noisy!

Any recommendations from the locals?

F

Well, there's such a choice Fran.

For Beer the Falcon in town is good,  Sam Smiths on draft. There's a good Italian across the road, a Thai, just meters away on the same side of the pub, A Brazilian BBQ place the other side of the road from the pub as well. A hell of a choice in town to suit everyone.

We can always head back to the Cheshire Cat with the "on site" narrow boat car park. ;D

Gordon, any thoughts?

We havent had any response from the Liverpool Boys so not sure if moorings are required. 

My recollection was that the Cat wasnt too brilliant last time we went there and thats why we moved on elsewhere for subsequent meetings.

Happy to go with majority vote tho as always.

F

I've had a few meals at the Cat since we were last there and can only say that I haven't been disappointed, they've also changed the menu recently. There's also Hoole Hall but a tad expensive , £20 for a steak etc !!
 
 I was also recently accosted by Neil whilst minding my own business I may add !!

November 27th - Cheshire Cat = DONE!

1. Kev
2.
3.
4.

:)

1. Kev
2. Fran
3. Jules
4.

 :)

Now the next discussion is - Time :)

1. Kev
2. Fran
3. Jules
4.Gordon (+ Ben maybe)

How about 1930?

OK - on the assumption that Neil is just playing hard to get, I have gone ahead and booked a table for six at 19.30!! I have double checked with the pub and the table is ours for the evening, we don't get booted off for second sitting.

Job done - unless you want me to change it of course.

:)

Nice one Fran, good job it's near for me as I may not have a licence then !! Exeter magistrates court on the 25th , 106 on the M5 last month !!

What a disgrace - was that in your new car?!  Never too old to be a boy racer eh?!!

:)

 A ban comes with the car, you just have to arrange it with the police force of your choice  within 3 months of ownership!!

Street cred at last, been trying for ages !

Well done Fran :angel:

Congratulations Gordon, it's easy to press the right foot on the M5 especially the stretch between Exeter and Bristol :police: been there as well ::)

I know a good curry house in Exeter if your staying over ;)

I'm sure Neil will be along shortly....

 

I would have loved to have joined you all again, but just checked the date and it clashes with the Roger Albert Clark Rally, so I will have to give the NW Drinks a miss this year, as i simply can't miss the RAC. So I will be either in Hamsterley forest or on my way towards Scotland as you are all meeting up.

i may have to miss this as i find out in the next few weeks if im redundant or not :(

No need to miss it Kev, if I get banned I'll need a lift and I'm sure I can run to a meal in payment !!

Have u not heard yet Gordon

Kev - if u are made redundant, then you definatley need a drink!

ok well sort something out then!

Sorry guys and gals.....I won't be able to join you for the North West get together.....However I am at Niel's tonight and tomorrow...so if any of you want to meet up for a beer or two at Niels local,then I would be pleased to see you ;D

Andy

Folks,

Hope you don't mind but the Alex will be with me on Saturday night. Clash of social diaries at home means he'll have to come along with me, hope that's ok with everyone.

Gordon, will you be in the Fezza? he'd love to have a sit in the drivers seat!

Fran what time's the table booked for?

See you all Saturday

Good job I was reminded of this  ;D

Alex is very welcome - NW Chapter is grateful for any new members .... ;D

I have table for 6 booked at 7.30.

Attendees (in no particular order):-

1.  Fran
2. Jules
3. Alex
4. Kev
5. Gordon
6. Neil - (I assume, tho he hasnt officially confirmed yet!)
7. Ben? - Gordon has Ben checked his social diary yet? "definitive maybe"

If Neil/Ben both confirm I will contact the Cat and adjust the table number accordingly.

F

P.S.  Gordon - fingers crossed for your forthcoming appearance before the beak!

Fran,

He's only 10 and 11/12'ths so be gentle!

J

I was just trying to be welcoming and you turn it into something sordid!   :angel:

book for 7 to be safe id say

Mark Ben as a definitive maybe !! His driving test (theory) is on Monday so it could all go tits come Saturday.
If I've still got a licence then I'll be in the Ferrari, weather conditions being OK !!

Job done... now booked for 7 @ 7.30.

:)

Just to add  some more confusion I've now got an Ian (driver) a definite maybe Ben and a Gordon who is on the third week of a chemo session.

So out of that lot we're dependant on the driver ( he took me to Exeter and back ) so I should be ok to get there as he's coming to L M next year. All we need now is a definite maybe Ben  then by my calculation  we're  one up on original
 

Back to original Gordon + driver

Is your driver allowed to bring the Ferrari?   8)

i knew i had to do something saturday, unfortunately i was stranded in Stoke with a blown gear box it finally gave up BUT i had pre-empted this and my spare gearbox was at my mates and had been for a month. I completely over looked the meal as my head was elsewhere and didnt even find my phone till yesterday as it was in my car!

Sorry :(

Not to worry Kev - we will just have to arrange another one!!

I must say although numbers were somewhat depleted, it was a nice evening and food and service very much improved since our last visit.

Hopefully Gordon's non-appearance was for less unfortunate reasons and we can all catch up again soon.

F

Great to catch up with Fran and Neil on Saturday night. Bad luck Kev with the gearbox.

As Fran said, the food and service was very good. Alex enjoyed himself as well!

I hope that Gordons Ok and that Chris 24 has made it back from the Snowy Scottish boarders

JG

it was a shame as the car is moving on to pastures new soon fingers crossed and i enjoy are meals :(

Yep pity you missed it Kev, good night with Fran, Jules and Alex.

Food was good and better services than before, even the beer was nice. Thanks to my son who drove me there (got to be some perks for him driving now)

Gordon, hope is all ok, did see you made the BBC news  ::)

Hope next one is when it is a bit warmer.

Hi Jules, thanks for your thoughts as to if i made it back from the RAC. Below is a report from my three day adventure around the north east of England and southern Scotland. Yes I am back but very lucky to be in one piece really.

Just got home from a weekend that could best be described as an ADVENTURE ! I was going to stay for Monday's stages originally but having endured the previous two days driving on ice, decided to quit while I still had an undamaged car rather than venture back into the snow around Kielder. (Phone has just rang and it was my mate to tell me that all stages in Kielder tomorrow have been cancelled due to adverse weather conditions, stages to run non spectator in Kershop instead.) So looks like I made the right decision to drive home tonight.

My adventure started on Friday afternoon as I made my way towards Forest Drive at the top of the Dalby stage only to come across some photgraphers stuck at a junction so a re route to forest drive was required. We got close to the stage and parked up safely off road, then only to be asked to move as they may need to reroute the stage due to ice at a particular un passable area. So I moved the car down the road and promptly got stuck. Thankfully a marshal towed me back onto the road again and I ended up parked back near where I had been in the first place but this time road side. When I decided to leave after the first run through Dalby, I discovered that the wheel on the edge of the road had no traction and i was stuck again, so i went back and watched the second run as well. Thankfully after that some lads gave me a big push on the front end and I got my car mobile again and then had a a very scary drive out back to Low Dalby on a very slippery down hill tarmac road.

Actually started to panic on the run down to Low Dalby when it picked up speed to 10 mph ! Scared at 10 mph !

That drop into Thorntonl Dale afterwards certainly was interesting at 1 am.

I parked up by the mere at Oliver's and got a good nights kip in the car, in the morning my mate and I set off for the dock side cafe at 7am and it started snowing again while we were in there. Had a nice breakfast and then set off again towards the east side of Oliver's, but had to go back to the other side when we couldn't get up the uphill roads out of the town. So we ended up parked up back by the mere again and walked up through the mere hairpin and watched the final hairpin section next to the footie fields at the top. Right decision to not use Mere Hairpin in the circumstances as it would have been suicide.

We left Oliver's at around 2pm to set off up to Hamsterly and I walked past your car on the way out and noted that you must have abandoned any idea of Langdale. Leaving a run able stage at Oliver's was our first mistake and the adventure / nightmare began. The road up to Whitby was ok, a little slow due to snow but easily passable but we decided to stick to the A roads rather than take the short cuts the sat nav was telling us to use. Once out of Whitby however on the A171, it was a totally different story as the road just got worse and worse the further you went towards Giusborough and eventually it was down to 20 mph and a total white out. Then a problem, everything ground to a halt behind a Tesco wagon that couldn't get up a hill and with traffic coming the other way, nobody could get a run up to overtake it. After about 5 minutes, he managed to get the truck up the hill and we were off again. Then that bad down hill s bend section was a interesting with everyone crawling down at about 2 mph.

We got to the edge of Middlesborough and then I hit a problem either the tyres on my car are s**t and have no grip on packed down snow or I can't drive it , one or the other, but I got to a roundabout and couldn't get up the hill. There was a bus in the lay by that also couldn't get up the hill as well. I had three attempts and kept reversing back down the other lane back to the roundabout for another go, really f****d me off that every other car including by mate made it to the top but mine ground to a halt at the same place every time. The worst part about it was the kids taking the piss stood on the pavement. Eventually I gave up and had to get all the cars behind me at the roundabout to reverse so I could back up and try an alternative route through town. I then pulled in across a road end to wait for my mate to come back down to my alternative route, stuck again when I tried to set off in the snow eventually got it going and again my mate had turned round and come back again, so now I was back in front again, went round a sweeping bend normally a 30 - 40 mph bend slightly down hill. I was doing barely 15 mph at most and then without warning that was it, I was a passenger heading straight on for someone's garden fence. I tried to steer, nothing, the brakes were doing f**k all because of the ABS. I tried driving out of it, and nothing worked and I simply straight lined it across a road end and went towards this garden fence fearing the worst. Thankfully the kerb managed to stop all my forward momentum and it hit with the tyre rather than a side on impact so I thankfully did no damage to either the front bumper as it cleared the kerb or the wheel as the tyre took the impact. I got out and was relieved to check everything over and find naff all damage. I had stopped with about a foot to spare from the fence and it was a 3 -4 foot drop into a garden at the other side of the fence. My mate came round the bend and pulled up laughing to ask what the hell was I doing there !

Then the blizzard started and we stopped to get the maps out and work out a way out of the place avoiding hills and getting further inland. Middlesborough was a total nightmare as it was a total white out coming down real heavy and we thought we were going to be stuck there for the night it was so bad.

At this point we decided that we weren't going to make Hamsterly so decided to try and regroup at a services for food and head towards Scotland for Sunday instead.We eventually found a route out that took us to Darlington, the A1 and to Scotch Corner for the A66, it was now 17.30, 3 1/2 hours after leaving Scarborough !

We spotted a Morrisons so stopped and had a decent cheap meal in the cafe and checked out the roads and the forums before making a decision on what we were going to do. Turned out that Hamsterly didn't start until 8pm, some 3 hours late and we could have probably made it after all and it ran twice as well, but we didn't discover this until this morning. So we headed across to Penrith on the A66 and stopped in at the service area at Carlisle for a quick walk around before heading to Ae. We left the service area at 9pm and glad we didn't wait for the cars to arrive as the first one got in at 11 pm, 2 1/4 hours later than scheduled. Was told by someone that left service area at 1.20 am that twenty cars had still to arrive in service. I also understand that the Sheppardshield stage that was due to start at 8pm, the last car left the stage at 2 am.

Anyway we went to Ae forest and took the 18 mile longer route as it stuck to main A roads rather than the narrow back lanes to avoid the ice and there was just a light dusting of snow on the roads, slippery if you pushed it but drivable at 30 mph or so, so we decided to go in our usual route at the far end of the stage and park up for the night and hope the forecast snow for the morning didn't arrive. Fortunately the snow didn't come and we have had a great day watching both runs through Ae at two excellent viewing spots, with the car parked only 100 yards from the stage so easy to walk back to for a brew at half time between the stages.

Then with the decision made we set off back down the M6 for home, fine until we got to approx the Kendal area and it started to snow and before you knew it, the lanes disappeared and it went from 80 mph down to 25 mph just like that and we were in another heavy blizzard. Deja vu or what from the night before. You could differentiate between lanes and had to drive or whatever bit looked the most passable and a 3 lane motorway was down to 1 lane at times. Fortunately it cleared up around Lancaster and we had a clear run home to Preston, so stopped in for Chinese takeaway before heading to home.

So you can see we have had a real interesting time of it the last 3 days and certainly a rally to remember for various reasons and why I called it an Adventure.

Nice write up Chris, reminds me of the last time I marshalled on the RAC up in Kielder 17 years ago, the conditions were just a you described. Slept in the car on the stage with some mates from York Motor Club over night. Blimin cold it was. The amount of snow on the stage was amazing, as ever we had quite a crowd at our sector, how they made it in foot heaven knows!

Glad I was at the Cheshire cat thou with Fran and Neil. Table was just by the fire, lovely and warm ;D

Apologies and all that but I've just made it out of Clatterbridge hospital since the Friday, and should be back in on Tuesday !! All good fun eh?

Gordon - good luck in Clatterbridge, if you need a vister or a driver let us know, as just down the road at Neston.

Chin up Gordon, and good luck with the treatment.

As Neil say's,  I'm just around the corner as well, are you accepting visitors?, are the nurses pretty? >:D if yes to both points I'll swing by ;D

Cheers for the offers folks but I'm out now !! I'll let you know next time I'm in, that's if they can find the problem !!
They said I 'd "developed" a new tumour which now could be a fungal infection but  I think they'll just toss a coin or just hazard a guess !!
The latest is to go in for a camera to be shoved down my throat to have a look, they tried it before but on a local and I kept trying to bite the camera head off , so this time it'll be a general anesthetic to preserve their equipment.