This is what it's all about. It's fuckin poetry.

One hot summer was originally written as coursework in 1994, for my GSCE English exam

It was a warm humid summer - unusual for this country - but that's how it began. We were all supposed to meet, at a friends house at two o'clock and as usual with this crowd things weren't running to schedule.

On arrival at loopy's, no one was there except him scoffing his tea. His mum offered mike and me some dinner, Mike accepted the offer of dinner and she started dishing it out. I declined the food and told the pair of them that I needed to chase up the others. I decided to take control of this outing, as I felt responsible, due to the fact it was my idea and I had suggested going to the Lakes in the first place. I told Mike and Loopy to hang loose, but they were to busy scoffing and didn't seem to take any notice, while I went to find out what the others where up to.

First I had to call on Brian's and then I had shoot over to southgate to get Pete. Brian 'the lazy bastard' was in bed and looked like he'd been on the piss the night before. I was waiting for him in the front room with his old mother, who was confined to a wheelchair and swore that like a 'docker'. All the time I was there she kept banging on his bedroom wall- which was next to the sitting room in their bungalow- with her wooden stick and shouting "come on Brian get up " ; she said Alan's here. The reply was just a grunt and some rustling sounds from the bedroom. Fifteen minutes later he appeared from the bedroom, stuck a fag in his gob, and collapsed in one of the armchairs in the front room. He obviously had forgotten all about the weekend run. We spent the next ten minutes discussing the events of his previous night out down at the pub while drinking tea. Eventually, he dragged himself out of the chair and started to get his stuff ready. All the time he was packing, his mum was constantly nagging him. Brian "when you gonna pay that money back you borrowed" and "when you gonna paint that fucking kitchen" I'm sick of asking our John. But he took no notice and muttered under his breath "fuck off, get our John to do it" while pulling faces at me.

Outside in the car park he slowly strapped his gear on to his bike with a series of bungee straps. Impatiently I started my bike and began reving the engine to hurry him up, hopeing he'd get the hint that I was in a rush, but he just went even slower. His bike was a swine to start, due to all the excessive tuning mods, but eventually it spluttered and burst into life. Loopy called it "the Big red fire engine" because it was red and huge and leaked water. I used to constantly take the piss out of him because it was always in the Kawasaki dealers gettting fixed. He was always ringing them up and they were always putting off the collection date. I use to tease him saying "It's that bellend Blackburn again ringing about the kwacker 1100". I would say that the mechanic doing his tuning was some cowboy with a huge hammer and chisel, wacking big chunks of metal of the cylinder head. Why he'd had it tuned was no ones business because It was a Kawasaki GPZ 1100 probably the fastest road bike at the time. It made my Yamaha 650 look like a moped, even though both where capable of speeds above 120 mph plus. Brian always had to have the fastest bike available when Suzuki had the quickiest, he had a Suzuki and when Honda had the fastest, he had a honda . He flew out the car park like he was in some sort of race and I followed him hammering it in every gear to keep up with him.

We were at pete's in a matter of seconds and surprisingly he was already. He had a Triumph T120, it wasn't as quick as the Japanese models but it was so cool looking. It radiated a sort of Steve Mcqueen coolness, I suppose most people related it to the film the Great escape were Mcqueen, being chased by half the German army on a triumph motorcycle, nearly escaped by jumping ten foot high fences. I liked it but Brian thought it was shit slow. We set off again and headed to the original meeting place all burning rubber.

By the time we had got back to loppy's it was about three o'clock and to my surprise Motty had turned up. He said last week he wasn't going because his Honda 750 had probs but he'd sorted it and was now up for it. I wanted to get an early start because at teatime, all the muppets in cars would be jamming up all the roads up. So without any delay at Loppy's we started off.

We were going to Lake District and we had already discussed details of the route at the pub last weekend. It was only about an hour up the M6 and then turn off at Kendal onto an A-road. Thirty minutes later we would arrive in Ambleside. Cruising at about 90 mph the journey should have taken one and half hours but mottty had to stop for a fag every half an hour and we didn't get into Ambleside until late afternoon.

It was quiet in the town with an odd number of tourists browsing round the main shopping mall. I insisted we look for a campsite before it got too late but the rest of lads wanted to dive in the chip shop and get something to eat. So I gave in and we stuffed our faces with fish and chips. We sat by the bikes in a small car park eating the food. Pete was eyeing up ever piece of talent that walked past us and Brian was pulling stupid faces behind Loppy's back. After eating we all agreed that we had to find somewhere to camp and so we split up into two groups. Mike, Motty, Pete and brian would wait in the pub at ambleside and me and loopy would look for a campsite.The arrangement was that as soon as we found a site we would return and all head off to the campsite.

The first night was a bit of disaster Mike, Motty, Pete and Brian pitched their tent on a car park in Ambleside because loopy and I never returned.They got totally shit faced in some trendy wine bar and invited back to a swinging party. Mike pissed on a carpet in one of the rooms at the party and they all got thrown out. He also tried a bong but was blowing instead of sucking. The host thought he was taking the piss, which he probably was because he didn't smoke. When they got back to the tent, it was pissing it down and the tent collapsed. Motty who was pissed jumped on it and snapped the centre pole. He then slept in a puddle of water in his sleeping bag while Mike,Pete and Brian slept in the tent with no centre pole. They all got pissed wet threw.

Loopy and I ended up in Hawkshead because the last ferry across the lake had gone and I didn't want to ride all around the countryside in the total darkness without a map. I also didn't want to leave my expensive tent on a council car park. After settting up camp I went to the village pub with benderboy(Loopy).

The folowing day we all met up in ambleside. Something I did not know before setting off on this trip was it's very hard to get a pitch on any campsite in the Lake district especially if you're an all male group motorcyclists. Local people seem to think your trouble and will not give you the time of day. After three or four attempts to find another site we deciced to return to the site me and Loopy had stayed in the previous night. On returning to site the owner was reluctant to accomodate us because of the numbers but after much pleading he agreed to let us pitch our tents. I did all the pleading and the others just sat round. Motty was showing off wheel spinning his bike in front of some teenage girls and when I come back and told him to stop it. He replied by saying who are, vicar Nolan. After the tents where set up it was time to sample the local ale, so off to the pub we went.

After all that travelling round looking for a campsite, we had been very lucky find one right next to pub, it was only two minutes walk from the site. It was business as usual; our business of getting drunk and having a good laugh, to my surprise the locals in the pub were quite friendly and they gave us a good game of darts. We won of course, Mike was an excellent darts player and wiped the floor with them. Time past and last orders were called, all of us were drunk and ready for bed. The night never seems to end when you are having a good time and on the way back to the campsite we carried on laughing and joking. Back at the site we crept in to our tents and carried on drinking. We had bought some beer from the pub as a carry out and Mike had a bottle of harvey's sherry. We drank until we were so tired we all fell to sleep.

Fatman

The next morning I woke up rough from the previous nights boozing mouth dry and the stale smell of ale on my breath. The tent smelled like a rugby players dressing room. It was sunny outside and brian was crouching at the bottom of my tent "wakeup Al we are all going for a swim". The rest of the lads were all outside waiting to go, so off we went looking for a stream or lake to take a dip. Down the little country lanes we rode all in a line all chasing after each other, that's what it's like when we go anywhere it's all a game and everyone's racing each other. Suddenly Brian who's all ways in front, stops and pulls over on a grass verge. When we had all come to a halt, we could see a stream down in a gorge and decided this was the ideal place for an afternoon dip. Time to strip off and dive into the cool water, relax and splash about and have a good time, forget about work and everything back home. After the swim we decided to go to Keswick. It's a pleasant little town full of Tudor buildings and narrow cobbled streets hiding several quaint public houses. Opening time at the pub so we called in for an afternoon drink and a game of pool. Back to the campsite for lunch before another session in the local ale house. It sounds like an alcoholics dream but that's what young people do when they are on holiday. Relax and drink anyway "you're only young once" has the saying goes.

Sunday Morning: work tomorrow I might as well try and squeeze has much pleasure into this holiday as I can. So we are up nice an early and off into Ambleside messing round on the bikes. A couple of pints in the pub and a boat ride on the lake and then back to pack up at the campsite.

the end.........

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