As Ian was co-ordinating the ferry bookings for T-Days I thought I'd volunteer to do the same for this year's Trumpettreffen, so I dug out the 'phone number of Motorsport Travel and pinned up a form on the Pied Bull notice board for people to sign themselves up.
Jump forward a few weeks and there were nine names on the board, representing eight bikes. Jump forward another couple of weeks and there was a hefty sum on my credit card and the promise of the tickets waiting for us at the ferry terminal.
To my surprise, they subsequently arrived through my letterbox about a month before the rally, so I was able to distribute them to the lucky recipients who had by that time reimbursed me. All was set and the only thing to worry about was the precise location of the rally, the weather, which bike to take (I know, it's a hard life), which t-shirts to pack and so on.
Jump forward to the night before (don't worry, it's the last jump in this report) and all these questions had been resolved in my mind except the first. An email to the Triumph Owners' Club of the Netherlands had not elicited a reply, nor did my last-minute attempts to call the 'phone numbers on the web site (www.tocn.info if you're interested). I even tried emailing a guy from Oswestry who had originally contacted me for some information. That left me with two hopes: one that Gary and Jackie, who were going independently after a week in France, would find it first and could be contacted, and the other that it wouldn't be a big place and we'd spot some signs when we got there.
Sadly, at the eleventh hour Robin Wilcox telephoned me to let me know he'd have to miss the trip after all due to an unexpected combination of family and work commitments, a shame as he had mentioned more than once how much he was looking forward to it. On the positive side, Kevin had managed to procure a couple of ferry tickets at the fully discounted price, comparatively close to the date.
So next morning at the ESSO garage near Dartford the roll call was for Ian & Julie, Andy & Lee, Kevin & Janet, plus Phil and myself. Rather than wait until we'd all completely assembled, Andy and Lee hit the road to get a head start on us for when Lee's outfit might get stuck in traffic. It was generally light though and we did not catch them up until we'd left the A12 behind and were on the A120 towards Harwich.
Once at the port we quickly spotted the Oswestry guys and they knew who we were by the chrome tank on my bike. I, in turn, recognised one of their bikes in particular - a Thunderbird Sport which also had a chromed tank as well as mudguards and side panels. (A picture had been emailed to me some months ago.) A few minutes chat during which we learned that they had ridden down to the area the day before, camped overnight and got soaked, and then we were creeping forward in a line to check in. The loading was a bit haphazard with some of us being directed up the ramp to the top deck and others having it easy on the level, but we all got the bikes strapped down and found our way inside to the bar for a pre-prandial snifter before luncheon. Or to put it another way we guzzled a couple of beers before decamping to the restaurant to stuff our faces at the all-you-can-eat buffet.
Special mention should be made at this point of Phil's unswerving dedication in the pursuit of value for money and Kevin's similar commitment to voting with his fork. Plate after plate was filled at the counter and then cleared at the table, with hardly a selection of food being overlooked. I managed a modest two helpings each of starter, main course and dessert but I was out of their league, or indeed metabolic level. Suffice it to say that no-one mentioned being peckish for the entire rest of the day.
Once a rally has been experienced a couple of times, even with a year's gap in between, certain aspects stick in the mind and it was not so much with surprise as with resignation that we heard the announcement for the children's entertainment, thoughtfully positioned right in front of the restaurant area. The same bearded, late-middle-aged character in a fez, beard and eye-scorching waistcoat hoved into view and for the next fifteen or twenty minutes Mr Adrian had the floor. Whereas we beat a retreat to the duty-free shop. Suitably stocked up with film, fags and booze we didn't have long to wait before the call came to rejoin our vehicles and disembark.
At some point it had been made clear that the Oswestry guys had not wasted much time working out how to get there, but to be fair what with one thing and another, neither had I. Hence it was a group of about twelve bikes that formed up behind Ian and Phil, both of whom had at least a general idea which roads to take. Imagine our surprise then when, before we had left the Hook of Holland locality, we came upon a diversion that I would categorise as being the "one sign, then you're on your own" variety. Fortunately we got ourselves back on track and were taking a familiar right turn onto the first main road and before long going through the Benelux tunnel in a southbound direction.
Somehow despite some heavy traffic and a couple of last-minute exits at major intersections we kept together and didn't leave anybody behind. At the petrol stop Gary got in touch to say he and Jackie and Matt were already there, so that cleared up the question of where to go once in Leende: look for the church and turn right... or was it left?
So a bit later on we were pottering through the manicured little town spotting "Trumpet" signs, of which there were a more helpful quantity than in previous years. They led us to a rather attractively wooded spot with a gate and a check-in post. We duly paid the entry cost and bought our breakfast and beer tokens, trying to guess how much of each we'd feel like in the next 36 hours. The family Lineham appeared and directed us to where they were camped, along one side of a field that was pleasantly green and soft under foot (and tent). As we were putting the tents up, familiar faces and bikes would appear. I'm sure it will only be a few more years until I can remember all their names.
The Oswestry chaps sent a delegation into town to get some supplies and we were impressed when they came back after a while with a full crate of bottled beer strapped on the luggage rack of the bike. Meanwhile some of us had been talking to Graham Ham, writer for Missing link text! magazine amongst others and owner and long-distance rider of the famous "Daisy", a 1948 Triumph Speed Twin. His exploits have been frequently featured in Nacelle over the last few years and inspiring reading they make too.
The Netherlands' Penningmeester (treasurer to you) Onno came over and against my expectations was easily persuaded to have a ride on Gary's Hinckley Tiger, wisely opting to swap his union jack clogs for proper boots on this occasion. Off he rode to return a while later and admit that he rather liked it. With that revelation it was time to head for the bar where we found Jim and Paul (otherwise known as Paula). Having not seen them for quite some time I had to catch up on the news that Jim had moved on to a green Speed Triple and Paul was now on her own bike, a Ducati Monster 600. I later spotted Jim's bike and admired his neat underseat exhaust system. He also had some official Triumph panniers which come with a pair of protective covers for the bodywork - a good idea but as I found recently, seriously expensive.
There was no band on the Friday night but they did have a good DJ who turned out to have some decent music when he was persuaded to play it, giving us all the opportunity for a bit of leaping around. For a bit of a change there was the opportunity to compete in the traditional Dutch pastime of "banging nails into a log". For something that can be as simply described there were a surprising number of rules: each contestant started with a six inch nail and a hammer (the latter being crude home-made items made from a short metal tube welded to a shorter solid bar). The winner was the first person to bang their nail all their way in to the log; they were supposed to pay for the nails (?!).
The loser was the last person to bang their nail right in; they were supposed to buy a round of drinks for the others (and it was at this point in the explanation that the whole idea made more sense). To avoid it being too easy, you had to place your hammer on the log by your nail and then draw back and swing in one movement - no delicate lining it up over the head of the nail. For this reason, even those whom I took to be seasoned veterans of the game were wont to miss the nail completely on occasion. A final refinement was that you were perfectly at liberty to hit someone else's nail if it helped with your strategy (not that I ever figured out how).
There were clinks, there were clonks, there were sparks, but fortunately no injuries. I managed not to lose but somehow also managed not to get the promised beer. Still at least I'd participated in a popular local custom without embarrassing myself.
Most folks seemed to have slept in on Saturday morning, judging from the queue at the breakfast tent, which was still sizeable at 11:30, half an hour after they had planned to finish serving. This meant that once we'd got fed, the sun was high in the sky and we'd pretty well missed the organised run which was billed as including an excursion into Belgium. We therefore decided that we might walk into town and have a few drinks, a spot of late lunch and grab a few supplies at the supermarket, the most imperative of which was some Desperado beer for Andy and Lee. It's not available in sunny Bexley and there's always room in the sidecar for some to take home.
The roads were very quite so we fixed our gaze on the distant church and strolled along, grateful that the weather was sunny but not too hot. A few turns, a mile or so or walking and we were in the middle of town, wondering where all the locals were hiding. Still there was a café open with tables outside and plenty of empty chairs so down we sat. The next couple of hours were passed with friendly banter and careful scrutiny of the menu until we were confident enough to order something to eat. The results were quite tasty and kept us going until the evening. A couple of other groups of people from the rally came along and a few bikes rode past during the afternoon.
We left the café some time later and stopped at the supermarket as planned where the drinks were purchased in modest amounts. Well we still had plenty of beer tokens to get through by the end of the night. Our walk back through the residential streets was enlivened by spotting a young lady up a ladder industriously stripping paint off a first floor window. Predictable comments were made about multi-skilling and sharing domestic tasks and a couple of pictures were taken, after which we waved and moved on.
Back at the campsite the Oswestry lads were making inroads into their beer supply and we gravitated back to the bar. The band for the evening were traditional rock and roll but their start seemed to be delayed by some equally classic problems with the equipment. Finally they did get going and they certainly sounded like what you would expect of a rock'n'roll group, even if the material was not to everyone's taste.
I called it a night comparatively early but other people reported that they were playing till gone 1 a.m. and the DJ played until about 3 a.m. by which time we were all tucked up in our tents, if not actually managing to sleep!
On Sunday morning Gary, Jackie and Matt were up in good time, as they had to get back to Calais for their ferry. The rest of us calculated that we could leave it until later so breakfast and packing up was a leisurely affair. We set off nearer noon and made good time back in the direction of the Hook of Holland. One stop for petrol and a cigarette break and we got to the port with enough time to park up outside our favourite café for a reviving drink before joining the queue for embarking.
There we caught up with other people from the rally including Jim and Paul, all of us waiting in the hot sun. Once we could get on the ferry, Julie tried out a strategy that had occurred to me on the way out - rather than waiting on the car deck while Ian lashed down his bike, she nipped up to the bar area to reserve us a couple of tables in the corner.
This worked very well and gave us a good spot to sit in until the restaurant opened and we could stage a repeat of the buffet-bashing performed on the way out. Getting a table proved a bit confusing as the staff were trying to reserve enough tables for a coach party of 40 who were due along a bit later. Still we got seated and got stuck in, filling up before the ubiquitous Adrian was due to start the children's entertainment.
The ferry was quite full but I managed to find somewhere to sit around at the back for the last hour or so. I got talking to another English guy in bike leathers who was working in Holland and travelling back for a holiday which included quite a bit of riding around the South of England. I rather envied him, as all I'd got to look forward to in the immediate future was a plod back from Harwich and hopefully an early night.
Once back on dry land, before we could hit the road there was the little matter of getting through passport control and somehow I and a few other bikes ended up at the back of a long queue of vehicles. I could see the others grouping up on the other side of the fence and judged that if I just sat in the queue I'd be at least another ten minutes. So it was time to do what bikes do best - sneak around the side of the queue and try to slip in unobtrusively up ahead. This worked surprisingly well and soon we were outside and setting off. One slight delay on the A12 due to a broken-down car in the outside lane after which it was smooth going back to Dartford and home.