Friday 28th – Sunday 30^th October

What a tenth anniversary season it has been, From Northumberland to the Isles of Scilly.

It was good not to be travelling far for the last rally of the season. Great Bourton is just about a half an hour away from home, now that the Silverstone bypass is open on the A43.

We arrived just after lunch on the 27^th. We nearly didn’t make it. Ray was in the midst of a course of antibiotics he had been ‘proper poorly’. Arriving and being greeted by George and Margaret and our old ‘Brummie friends’, John and Frances soon made things improve. It was good to be amongst ‘old’ friends again. We had just managed to get set up when one of Gerry’s ‘cousins’ arrived to see us. They only live just down the road in Banbury. It’s amazing how many second cousins you can find from Family History research. We had a great afternoon together.

It was good to see members at the rally for the first time. Eric and Jennifer Winchester had travelled just about the same distance that we had, they came from Bicester. Brian and Amanda McElroy had come a little further, from Northern Ireland!! But not just for the weekend, they were touring as their annual holiday. They are also managers of a site, which could come in useful!  John and Paula Howe/Dale were also with us for the first time, along with a couple we last met on our annual holiday in Scilly, Bill and Norma Hibbert they had travelled down from Lancashire. There were thirty one units in all which was really good for an Autumnal weekend.

It was great to have the facility of Cropredy Village Hall to get together in the evenings, even better on the Saturday when we had the use of their Skittle Alley. Still don’t know how we did it but we ended up winning the team competition. Thank you George for all of the organising; along the voucher for a ‘free night’ next season. That could come in useful for next year.

All towns should have an open street market like Banbury, an excellent range of stalls from fresh food to haberdashery. I have just realised where all the independent shopkeepers have gone to, they are now on the markets, after being forced out our High Streets by the multiple stores and the high rents. Just a bee in our bonnets.  No guesses as to where we spent our Saturday morning.

Finally; two further highlights of the weekend, were the kindness of the site owner, he allowed the committee to use the lounge in his house for their meeting on the Saturday afternoon. Thank you; David Boddington. The second ‘highlight’ was the final rally meeting of the season. It had been planned that we could have used the ‘implement shed as a last resort’ if the weather was bad. It was sort of OK, right up until 10-25am and then it started to rain, too late to organise the implement shed! As you can see from the pics we made use of George’s awning and the umbrellas. I thought it made a wonderful splash of colour on what was a very very wet meeting, not sure what the people who were under the umbrellas felt?

We must say a very big thank you to George and Margaret Clark and John and Frances Bratt for a great weekend and a big, big thank you to Chas White for a wonderful season of rallies.

 So ended the 10^th Anniversary Season.

Ray and Gerry.