2nd Mabon Rally 2002

For a tiny village in the middle of the green and pleasant Northamptonshire countryside, the Rally site is actually surprisingly easy to find. I confess to a bit of a head start having stayed over with Otter (Cernunnos Club Sec) and Carrie the night before. I had to go back to Bedford for a few hours on the Friday though, so I did have to get there on my own. The site is the beer garden and some horse paddocks behind the Robin Hood Pub in Clifton Reynes. When, after a bit of a stressful day, I rolled up on site at about 4pm on the Friday, I was greeted with a smile and a side stand plate. It's the simple things that matter in these circumstances, but then the Cernunnos crew know this, being no strangers to the odd rally themselves.

The Pub is at the bottom of the slope, with the extensive beer garden behind, which served as the camping area. At the top of the beer garden, the landlord (A Cernunnos Associate) had provided an open sided marquee in case it rained. Beyond this was a horse paddock cleared for the bonfire.

Having got there quite early, I had plenty of room to pitch. By the Saturday things had got a bit more crowded. If they get as many as they deserve next year, then they will have to open up another paddock. So I pitched up and went to talk to the gate crew, awaiting the arrival of young Patrick from Guildford. They had the trophies laid out on the booking in table and mighty fine they were too. Stained decorative glass squares with a custom made cast relief of the Cernunnos head image. I ticked off the likely prize categories and since I had only come over from WIltshire (about 100 miles) I wasn't going to get the long distance male. I thought of talking in a squeaky voice, but didn't think I'd get away with it. The best my rather filthy Blackbird was going to get me was Best Rat. Damn. I could just see one of those on my shelf.

Cernunnos define the Mabon as a "Trad Rally". By this they mean there are no bands or stalls or rides or anything like that. Damn .. that means you have to actually *talk* to people! Not sure about that at all. While wandering around chatting to folks on the Friday night I had already worked out who was going to get the Club turnout award. It was a dead cert for Barrel Bikers MCC. There were also folks from WOT, F.O.W.L.P.E.S.T. and various MAG regions. There's not really much you can write about having a great time gabbing with folk until the wee smalls, so I won't. The inferno was unleashed at about 10:30 and the party rolled on until dawn .. or at least I'm told it did as I caved in at 5am.

They were pretty damned lucky with the weather mind. Saturday was a bright clear day for the most part and did nothing to stop people variously sitting around gabbing, going for a spin in the country or nipping into Olney for supplies. I missed most of this though ... didn't surface until late morning ... bad week.

The silly games kicked off in the early afternoon with the usual array of dizzy sticks and such. Mea Culpa, can't say much about them as I had conked out again by 1pm and didn't come round until 4ish. Thus refreshed I rejoined my comrades and chatted with the late entrants until the pub opened for food ... namely Ham, Egg and Chips. Excellent! Apart from this, the Saturday night was pretty much a repeat of the Friday, and no bad thing.

At 10ish Otter called everyone back to the outside bar for the prizes and anouncements.

We all then went back to the fire to drink beer and talk crap until the wee small hours once again.

I have to say that the only regret is that I wasn't there last year. Apart from the fact that it is a fine little rally, the rally badges will be a sequence of green, orange and red enamelled brass disks and I'm missing the green one.

So, in summary, you could do a whole lot worse than going to this great little trad rally next year. Go on, you know you want to!