Bellingham 2023

Bellingham September 2023

 

The Bellingham rally seems to be a firm favourite with club members and 2023 was no different from the rest. The evening was mixed, long standing members arriving who hadn’t been to a club rally since before covid and new members hadn’t met the long-standing members before. A long evening of catching up between members from Marian Evans and her first rally and her first with the club since the passing of Howard, both long standing members and strong supporters of the club. Maraian makes her way all the way from Weston Super Mare on her own with her newly acquired Cheltenham Oribi. Needless to say her first trip went off with a bang and hopefully Marian will write about it for us.

We also had a very warm welcome for the Togwell’, long standing members that hasn’t been on a club rally since covid, partly due to car problems. The Togwell family return with their lovely restored Sprite Major, sadly to be her last rally but a little more on this soon. The boys have certainly grown during this time and loved being back on the rally field with fellow members and with Arther hoping to be the clubs next Chair.

Club members who we also haven’t seen since the dreaded covid were John Roberts and Hilary Clayton, with their newly purchased caravan, their Mustang Pinto that they purchased from fellow club member Ben Humphries-Gibbons. They arrived with Tess their cockapoo for the weekend.

 

Saturday and a group of members decided they were going to go for a walk to a waterfall, this being alongside the brewery where, of course members had to stop off and inspect. While some stayed at the caravan site others went into the town too. Saturday evening and members gathered on the rally field where catching up and drinks passed the evening by. Some more members arrived. Members are welcome to come and go as they wish with no set arrival time.
Sunday and coffee morning, a club tradition that’s stuck, now part of the event. Coffee morning was where members say goodbye to fellow members but others who are staying decide what the day brings. The remaining members decided they would have a walk into Bellingham for lunch. The walk into Bellingham takes you along the beautiful river bank walk through the trees with amazing views up and down the river. A short walk and you’re into the centre where you’ll find plenty of shop and pubs, this is where members find themselves and ordered the Sunday lunch.

As mentioned previously the Togwell family Sprite Major had hit an issue, a collapsed axle which needed recovering, this sadly had been found to be a write off meaning the caravan had FINALLY come to the ball after its restoration but sadly her final ball. Barbera (her name) now resides on a friend’s piece of land where she will see her final days out as a static caravan.

But this wasn’t the end of the car issues, two further break downs with flat batteries, the poor breakdown man had more work than he wanted, jumping cars on the field. Further to this Cameron and his Rover P6, on the way home as it turned out after a long wait for recovery at the side of the road had picked something up in the wheel.

Sunday afternoon came and members had returned to site, an afternoon snooze after lunch and the field drops quiet. As members come around, they descended onto Emmerson’s little two berth caravan (how many members can you fit in?) this just happens at times. The site has a B&B estate and with it a kitchen where we had had pizza’ on Saturday evening. Small tester pizzas were brough for tasting and seeing what members thought. The evening went onto the late, dark evening of friends laughing the evening away.

Monday and further members left the official rally which run from Friday to Monday. Some of the remaining members decided if they could they would stay. Further travel plans meant a few days limbo and others with a distance to travel decided it would be nice to stay.