MAD MANDY AND MOTORBIKE FEVER

The motor cycle racing season is well and truly up and vrooming.

Our spiritual wean, James “Wee Man” McCann is off to Bishop’s Court and like any spiritual mammy and daddy we wish we were able to go and cheer him on. I would go but Tiger will never leave the Rock. I think he loves that dog more than me. In fact he has as much as admitted it.

James new leathers are fabulous … so much so that I had to have my picture taken wearing them. OK! So they don’t fit tubby and I had to wrap them round me, but wear them I did.

James thinks I am nuts. He can talk. Racing at speeds in excess of 200mph is not for the faint hearted and you have to be a wee bit mad to want to.

I would love to go pillion. There is nothing to match the shear exhilaration of being out on a hog and getting a smack in the visor by insects. A huge bee nearly knocked me off my KE100 trail bike back in the day when I could fit into TT leathers.

I dropped the bike outside Wolfie Connors on the corner of New Market Street because I was afraid the guy in the car speeding on Long Commons didn’t clock me. I was so busy watching him I lost speed and fell over. He tooted on his way past.

First time I took the bike down Portstewart prom a motorist coming out of the harbour car park looked right at me. Or so I thought. He pulled out in front of me and I was so afraid I pulled the front brake and nearly went over the handle bars. He hadn’t looked at me, he looked through me.  

Still have my lid after all these years but sadly the bike is long gone.

Tiger and I worked in the Seasplash Hotel in Portstewart in the late 70’s early 80’s and the craic was mighty. Dave and Shirley Henderson owned it and all the best bikers stayed there.

Roger Marshall doing a damned good impression of Rod Stewart singing Maggie May and dropping his trolleys to show us Scotland raised the roof.

I wonder if Steve Parrish remembers me. Two guys had told me they were him to get into the disco and when Steve wanted in I told him to p**s off. He did make an impression on everyone by going round Ballyreagh golf course with one club and whipped everyone. He is a talented guy in more ways than one.

I miss the late great Norry White of Motorcycle News. His pal Ewart Toms misses him too. Many wonderful, full of life friends are no longer with us. Tom Herron, Joey and Robert Dunlop and many more. Gone but not forgotten heroes.

Kevin Stowe came off and was lucky to survive. After a long time in hospital Raymond Gillespie and us nuts took him and his girlfriend Michelle to Donegal to the Talk of the Town. We stayed in The National and Tiger and my bed fell off its frame and we had to put it back together. There was no jiggy jiggy by the way. We were wrecked so put those naughty thoughts out of your heeds!

Shelley and Robert were tucking into a big breakfast when I appeared. I stuck my knife into my egg and heaved. Had to go back to bed!

Wayne Gardner (who wasn’t in Donegal) was shorter than me and I am four foot eleven and a half.

How he got his leg over that bike is a mystery to me. I bought a bike I can’t ride because it is too high for me. Tiger brought it out to the field and I was able to get on with him weighing it down. He started squealing like a wee girl that I was going too fast. I was in second gear! I got off and told him to park the bike. He parked it in the ditch but forgot to get off. Said the grass was wet. It was bone dry.

His sister is a Biker Babe who rides an 1100cc BMW Boxer cup and a 955I Sprint Triumph called Tweety Orr. It is as yellow as a dandelion. It is a powerful machine and fibrates. It is like nothing else. That is why bikers love it. The bike resonates within us.

Tiger picked Paul Gregg (York Hotel, Portstewart) up one day on the way home from walking the Rock. Paul had to get in the back as Rocky likes the front passenger seat. Paul couldn’t help commenting that Rocky leaned into the corners. Tiger said, “That’s nothing. You want to see him on the back of the bike”.     

THE ROYAL WEDDING

The husband got an invitation to the royal wedding … or so we thought until he read the small print. It was an invitation to buy tat to commemorate the occasion but it sure looked the part. We showed it to some mates and they were gobsmacked until we told them it was an elaborate attempt to get us to buy a coin (no doubt made in China to boot). What a bummer! I was ready to go and spend his arm and leg buying outfits. Oh well, what the hell! Who would want to go to Westminster Abbey and hob nob with the “great and the good”? I just wouldn’t fit in and would be barred from the reception for drinking all the champagne and singing Town Without Pity whilst standing on the wedding cake table.  

It is going to be a great occasion though. A commoner marrying a prince is a fairy tale come true. OK! So Kate Middleton is no Cinderella. She is a rather wealthy young lady. And lady she is.

Kate is beautiful and friendly and the perfect person to be the next Queen of Great Britain and the Commonwealth.

She has not been groomed to live an insular existence far removed from the rest of us peeps. She is one of us peeps. How wonderful.

And you know what? In these dark days of austerity it is time for optimism and love and gathering together to celebrate.

It is awful and crazy that some extremists want to hijack the occasion to make a point. Why do they not accept that we have a monarchy and there are two young people in love who deserve the best wishes of us all?

Who would want to disrupt such a joyous day? Sad peeps that can’t see the wood for the trees that’s who!

Marriage is a bond in anyone’s language or religion. It should be sacred, not exploited.    

It only took Tiger 32 years to say “I Will” and I had to wrench his arm up his back. Wreck the house Ruby was dismantling the CD player and for some strange reason I had tears in my eyes. Tiger nearly went too but I guess that was due to the pain in his elbow and wrist. They call the wife the ball and chain. I had to use a ball and chain to drag mine to the registrar’s office.

With hindsight I don’t know what I was thinking off. Tiger and the Rock take up the entire king size bed and I have had to sleep in Rocky’s little bed at times. They tell me I snore! I am going to record them some night and then they will realise what real snoring sounds like.

Back to the Royal Wedding.

Kate and Will have been living together so they already know each other’s foibles and they are going to tie the knot anyway. Or perhaps they are getting hitched because they like those wee idiosyncrasies that make a relationship more interesting and precious. For all my santering life is never dull with Tiger. I hope Kate and Will enjoy a long and exciting life together.       

If anyone in Ballymoney is thinking of having a street party on the BIG DAY count me in. I love to cook and have big pots. It is an opportunity to have a great day in each other’s company. How bad can that be? I can’t sing sadly but do anyway, but I can dance if that is OK peeps. And my stew is pretty good even if I say so myself.

We need a band on hand. I can feel a PARTY coming on.

All the very best to the happy couple. Cheers m’ dears.   

Sent Off

OK. You all know I am a sandwich short of a picnic. Well … I did the ultimate bad girl thing by picking up a ball that bounced right in front of me at one of the rugby matches on Saturday and ran up the pitch into the scrum. The lads could not have been nicer. They gave me another oval ball (weird things but lovely to hold) and let me throw it in. The assistant referee sent me off and he didn’t even give me a red card. Perhaps they don’t have those in Rugby. It is a real contact sport and I love it. I should have been a boy and then I would have played all my life. Unfortunately the knees are knackered and I am past my prime but I still crave the weave and tackle. And the scrum yum which is my own fantasy world.

What they didn’t know is that I broke my right big toe at Christmas and I am still feeling the pain. Who cares? Not me! Rugby players get all sorts of injuries and they take it without a grumble or moan and I am made from the same mould and proud to be so. 

They are an awful good crowd; great craic and all taller than me.

Right! So I am four foot eleven inches and a half. Everyone apart from the kids is taller than me. There are peeps over six feet tall for goodness sake. I came home with a creak in my neck from looking up at them.

Apparently some of the guys thought I was going to streak. I must hoke out that old Ray Stevens song for next time. “Ethel … you get your clothes on”.  

Game as they are I did tell them that gravity has taken its toll and things have gone south. They don’t mind. That’s why they are my honeys. They take us as they find us and all in good spirit.

I had such a great day. I wouldn’t have been standing where the ball landed except that Tickles … her with the baby grow … had to go for a smoke.

As a reformed puffer myself I am always giving off to her. May as well talk to the dog and ask him to stop lying with his crown jewels on the pillow.

Spring has sprung and I have a new lease of life. Oh dear! That ain’t necessarily a good thing because I do get carried away. The husband lives in hope that I do get carried away. I wonder why that is?

Even though I ran on for all of a minute I am feeling the burn today. That Rugby playing takes some stamina. I saw a lad with a black eye. Guess what? He didn’t lie down and cry like the babies who play football. He got up and played on as if it never happened.

To say I admire them is an understatement. Tiger used to play prop forward back in the day. I like to tackle him when he least expects it. He is a tall guy too. I only reach up to his armpit. I may be wee but I am wicked.

I am getting my own kit and will stand on the side-lines ready to make a conversion. One can dream.   

Males and Remote Controls

I have come to the conclusion that the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. The husband and the dog have always had control of the remote. Even when he is sleeping and I try to sneak it off him he grips it and growls … the husband that is, not the dog!

Rocky changes channels just by rolling over the remote. He is one smart dog. Pity he split soup over the remote by pawing my tray and I had to go on-line and buy another. Tiger dried the wet one out and when the new one arrived he commandeered it and allowed me to have the old one. How generous!

We have a mate who we call gadget man. He loves everything that is new-fangled and labour saving. I think I may have had a hand in encouraging him when I bought him this little remote vacuum cleaner thingamajig. He then bought a state of the art boyo that goes from room to room sucking up everything. Serves him right if it sucks up the remote control and it’s never seen again.

Then he bought Evo (short for evolution I think). It cuts the grass. It is a step away from intelligent life. It goes into its wee garage and charges itself up and then comes out and mows the lawn. Knows when the grass is too wet to cut and has an IQ higher than mine.

Tiger has enough tools to start his own hardware store. He never keeps like with like and I despair sometimes. Why do men like to leave tools all over the place and why do they come to us lesser beings to help them find a screwdriver?

Tiger is currently in a tizzy because the electric gates keep getting stuck and I have to say that against my advice (which is a waste of breath) he kept trying to open and close them in the snow. In my humble opinion that put a strain on the motors. Apparently not according to him! Yeah says I. How come they worked perfectly well beforehand? I am slightly sorry guys but you do make the most ridiculous excuses when things go wrong … especially when you are holding the spanner. Tiger says water got into the motor. The mechanism (whatever that is) needs cleaned and oiled. OK. If I am wrong about putting pressure on the system fighting the snow drift I will admit it. In my experience outside influences are the causes of every catastrophe men encounter. Don’t get me wrong. I love you guys. You are rather thran and like to futter with all things mechanical and the more moving parts the better.

Women tend to be more pragmatic and even call for help when needed. You guys plough on regardless.

Why read the instructions? You know how to build a shed or a dolls house without help. How come there are all these spare screws, nuts and bolts left over then?