I had a visitor in the middle of the night

Friday 24th June

Before you get too shocked about the title calm down, it was a member of the eight legged arachnid community rather than one of the more delightful two legged female member of the homo sapiens species. I awoke for the usual pit stop some time after 3 (sorry I can’t be more accurate, it was a bit of a blur). With the need for me to be awake soon over I climbed back into bed. The bed had a black coverlet on it and the sheets were white. I pulled up the sheets and as I was about to turn to switch the bedside light off something caught my eye. It was marching purposefully across the white sheet in my direction. The cunning devil had camouflaged its approach over the black bed cover. I didn’t know if it was a biter but I decided not to wait to find out and assumed it was. Off flew the sheet and being considerate to the people in nearby rooms I mimed a massive four letter swear word and jumped out of bed. I saw the little blighter on the carpet but it scurried under the bed before I could administer the last rites before inflicting rapid death by shoe. Try as a might I could not get back to sleep after that so I think about four hours was my lot of shut eye. Today is an excellent day to wear my “Grumpy Old Man” T shirt because I could easily be that way inclined before bedtime tonight.

Now that exciting episode has been documented I can pass comment on the Guest House I stayed at, it was brilliant!! A really ordinary looking place from the outside that perfectly matched all the other really ordinary looking places in the street. However, inside it was superb. It was very tastefully decorated and had a nice little breakfast set up in the room. A lot of thought had gone into making the room as comfortable and convenient as possible and was real value and a bargain compared to some of the other places on the trip. I’d gladly stay there again. I hope they don’t mind the now dead spider who I found after breakfast and humanely exterminated J I left the spider on the questionnaire about my stay on the room table. I was actually very complimentary about the stay!!

Ipswich vs. Newcastle last night was a funny old meeting. I had been spoiled the night before with a real belter and chances are that 99% of any meetings the following night would have been flat. This meeting was most certainly in that 99%. If I was doing a report card in horse race tipsters jargon it would be full of “on my first look expected better given what I’ve read” ….. “would be disappointed with that effort” …. “would look better in slightly weaker company” …. “found the journey a bit too long for his liking” …. “Last season’s form has not made a reappearance this time around” etc. You get my drift I’m sure. It was ok as a meeting without ever rising to any great heights. Thank goodness for old hands like Stuart Robson who showed how it should be done. Kozza Smith was a superb guest for Ipswich filling in for one of their walking wounded. At the less experienced end of the spectrum I was a little disappointed. I won’t mention any names but I got the impression a few riders didn’t always know where their bike was going and the intended direction of travel was not always matched by the eventual outcome. There were too many riders ending up on the floor for my liking. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on a bike trying to go round the outside of one or two of them at times. Whether it was over riding, inexperience, set up issues or track issues I don’t know. For the record Ipswich won 47 – 41 after Newcastle had earlier on in the meeting been as much as 10 points behind. Overall I’d give the meeting a narrow pass.. maybe 5.5 out of 10.

The upside is I met some really nice people (again). Finally caught up with Crazy Sue from the live updates speedway forum and have a chat face to face after doing live updates from Oz for about the last four years. Sue was doing the live updates and other than before the meeting I left Sue to do her thing. Then caught up with Newcastle’s Dave Rowlands, Poole’s Bob Cole and Nick, and Ipswich regulars Lesley and Badge (never did catch Badge’s first name, sorry Badge). It was nice chatting to them all and I had a really nice long chat with Dave. He’s Newcastle through and through and I’m sure if he ever needs a blood transfusion they will have trouble finding a donor with the matching blood type to Dave’s of black and white stripes. He’s a typical northerner, doesn’t mind letting his opinion be known but not nasty with it. He also generously dispenses free advice to the ref. He claims he’s not bitter over an incident a few weeks ago when an opposition rider came off and stayed down to get a rerun which turned a likely Newcastle heat win into a shared heat and Newcastle ended up losing the meeting by the odd point. Are you sure you aren’t bitter Dave!!!!!!!! I think Bob Cole knows Dave; all Bob did was keep smiling and laughing. Right answer Bob!! Bob is an unashamed Kyle Newman fan and we had a chat about all the garbage Kyle had to put up with in Australia this last speedway season just gone. Kyle is a top kid and he didn’t do anything to deserve the treatment he got but still kept smiling. Kyle had a nasty off and hit the air fence hard in one of the later heats, he was limping afterwards and I hope he’s ok.

I'm on route to Somerset now and it’s the PL pairs tonight with more Aussies in attendance. My traveling partner Big Fat Dave is in the country as I type and he will be there as well as Gavin Elmes from Brisbane. Some folk I met on the first two nights will also be in Somerset and now Dave is here plus a few people now know my face it’s going to be increasingly hard to keep a low profile. A shrinking violet Dave is not and I kind of get swept up in the hype and euphoria and get dragged along for the ride. Hope it’s not too bumpy!!


To be continued