SOUTHEND SHAKEDOWN
MONDAY 5th APRIL 2010.

The weather was very kind to us today. At times it was a bit overcast, but on the whole it was bright and NO rain.

We met up at the TOTAL garage in Brook Street, Brentwood at the junction of the M25 and the A12.
Present was Graham, Ken, Barry, Jim, Alan who brought along two others, Alan and Martin and myself who brought along my wife Marian.

We set off just after 09:30am going along the M25 one junction to the A127, which we followed right into Southend On Sea.
We entered the seafront by the Kursal and rode along the prom past the pier and were marshalled to park up just short of the Casino.

We walked back along the prom looking at the various bikes.
We popped into the pub just before reaching the pier, for coffee/tea/bacon rolls. We watched more bikes arriving from the pub windows.

Following refreshments we continued our walk along the prom. We had a look in the stalls/tents set up selling their wares. We continued walking along past the pier right up to the Kursal.
Ken made a phone call to Phil who was going to be arriving late and meet up with us. Ken made contact with Phil and found that he was in a café on the seafront having breakfast.
We popped back along the prom and found Ken in the café; he was with his wife Thelma and a friend Peter.

Some of us took the opportunity to demolish a portion of chips whilst waiting for Ken to finish his breakfast.

We again set off along the prom back towards the pier. On this part of the journey we came across two young girls giving out free yoghurts in a promo. Needless to say their offer was taken up. We found a vacant wall just before the pier where we could sit and eat the yoghurts and just watch more bikes arriving.

We made our way back towards the bikes taking in the stalls/tents again.

Everyone was in agreement that in had been a very good day and that we were lucky with the weather.
We then set off for the journey home with people peeling off where they needed to.

Compiled by : Roland Murphy.