Day 163 Race Day

Sunday 12 June

Phalanx of Moto2 riders

Bradley Smith gets in front of Scott Redding

As forecast, raceday dawned cold wet and windy.  Our breakfast chef cooked under the awning and we had our bacon rolls indoors then wrapped ourselves up well and headed to the track. Once there we froze!  Although sheltered from the rain by the grandstand roof the wind was blowing in our faces and was cold and penetrating, hard to believe it's June!  We'd missed the warm up sessions as that was definitely going to be a misnomer!  First race was the Moto2.  It wasn't a bad race considering the conditions.   Great to see Bradley Smith working his way through the field to come second.  As soon as the riders were over the finish line we left the stand to escape the wind!  It was actually less cold standing outside behind the stand where we were more sheltered. 








Chips and a hot coffee helped to warm us before the main race. After the first couple of laps it was a bit of a procession with not much action once Lorenzo, Simoncelli & Spies had crashed out.  It must have been horrendous riding at those speeds in such atrocious conditions.  In the interviews afterwards the top three all said how miserable and cold they'd been.  Ride of the race was undoubtedly Edwards who came third despite fracturing his collar bone a week ago!  Respect to the winner, Stoner - he's not exciting to watch but boy can he ride!

Lorenzo leads the pack early on

Finally it was the turn of the 125's.. By this time Ann & Andy had left and after 2 laps LB joined them as they couldn't stand the cold any more.  V,P & I being more hardy, or foolhardy, were rewarded by a more exciting 125 race. A bonus was the 3 Brits, who normally are lucky to get a point between them, coming 10th, 11th & 12th.  I doubt if either of the two later support races had any spectators at all as the shivering crowd, us included, all left immediately after the 125's finished.  

Standing water & Stoner takes the lead

Back at the van the heater & kettle was on. A&A had already taken down their tent and took their leave of us after a cuppa. We've all agreed next year we're going to skip Silverstone, and watch a MotoGP in warmer climes!  Then we were four. We spent a very pleasant evening cooking & eating in the warmth of the caravan while watching the even worse weather at the Canadian F1 race and Jenson Buttons amazing win.  What a day!


I took hundreds of photos at the race so hope you enjoy this selection!

Simoncelli chasing Dovizioso

The grand master - Rossi

Spray!

Crowds in the hospitality boxes

Day 162 Practice Day

Saturday 11 June


We had a leisurely start today with a breakfast of bacon rolls, abley cooked by Andy outside on our versatile paella burner!  It's much easier using it to cater for 6 than using small pans in the van or even smaller camping gas stoves outside. We were fortunate to have a sunny day though still not particularly warm.  The circuit is about a twenty minute walk through fields, from the campsite and we arrived as the 125 bikes were on the track. After watching those we went over to the infield to explore the stalls and entertainment but split up into couples and went our separate ways. I was really pleased to meet BikerBunny aka Sally, an old friend from the former BikerBabes forum, in the toilet of all places!  It was nice to say hello and catch up with each others news.  We hadn't met since a trip to the Assen MotoGP together some years ago.


After a sandwich lunch and watching the qualifying sessions from the grandsand we have reserved seats in for race day all six of us walked back to camp and settled down for an afternoon nap. Old age, fresh air and a day on our feet had worn us out! At least we were all perky for the evening!  LB and I had booked a table at the Fox & Hounds, where we'd eaten on Thursday.  Viv's son Jay joined us too and I thoroughly enjoyed the food and the company there.  the pub, like the campsite was much quieter than expected.  The forecast for Sunday is pretty dire and has obviously put a lot of people off.


I've really not bothered with photos today and only took the point and shoot to the circuit where I didn't have much inspiration!  There's just the one photo of the Air Asia signpost.  Air Asia are the sponsors of the British MotoGP so this is advertising there aircraft routes from London.

Day 161 Campsite Pond

Friday 10th June


Here I am playing catchup again as it's now Tuesday.  Internet access wasn't brilliant at silverstone and once company arrived I didn't have time for posting.  We had a quiet time on Friday. LB and I did a supermarket shop for the six of us in the morning. Shortly after unpacking it Anne arrived at the campsite so we helped her erect her tent.  In the afternoon we had a wander around the pond we were camping next to. As last year it was a nursery to lots of baby waterfowl and the source of my photos for the day.  In the evening LB cooked us a lovely paella on his new paella burner which we ate outside before all heading into the caravan to warm up. LB and I felt rather sorry for our friends when they left to settle down in their cold tents for the night!


The first photo is of a rather aggressive mother coot who seemed to be attacking one of the babies ( what's a baby coot called? - a cootling?) she pecked at it for several minutes before desisting and going back to pecking at the weeds

Here also are the two goose families, Canada & greylag,......


 ...and one of the really cute mallard ducklings

Day 160 Warwick Castle

We had a day to ourselves today, no racing and our friends aren't arriving at the campsite until tomorrow, however  we're not too far from our other friends, Anne & Bill who we mentioned in February when we stayed at Kingsbury Waterpark.   Warwick castle is roughly mid way between us so we met up there. It was an interesting place to explore although overrun with large groups of schoolkids.  Peaceful - it was not!   There's a huge amount of history linked to the castle and although the buildings are medieval some of the interior was 17th century.  The most fun was the dungeon, which was actually a tower, where we had a tour through dark corridors and rooms explaining various distasteful areas of mediaeval life such as torture, the plague, the justice court, all peopled by very enthusiastic actors. The castle walls and battlements gave a great view of the countryside

and here's a snap of the outside of the walls

Day 159 Silverstone

It's been a long day. We arrived at the caravan storage place in Bridgend at about 10.00 only to find the caravan movers weren't working. It was not a problem there but was quite awkward on the hilly grass of the campsite. We managed to site it eventually, pitch P&V's tent and erect our awning. Water, gas and electric are up and running although our tv seems dead. It worked on 240v last time we used the van but now we have no mains it's not working on 12v although it is supposed to. We'll have some rapid sorting out to do as our next trip is only a week after we return from this one. Anyway we had an excellent meal in the village pub just outside the campsite and are now snug. Back in the van. Today's photo is taken on my phone of the empty campsite with our caravan- the joys of arriving early!

Also taken on the phone was this gorgeous foal, in a paddock with his Mum, on the campsite