Scooter Rally . . . and a killer at the church!

For the last few days the Island has been alive with thousands of scooters, gathering from all over the country for the annual Bank Holiday weekend Scooter Rally.  Lambrettas and Vespas, many vintage and beautifully restored, buzzing around with their  very distinctive puttering 2-stroke engines and accompanying fumes and smell!  All highly nostalgic for those of a certain age - I can of course barely remember!

Yesterday we had a walk along the seafront to admire the machines, parked on every spare inch of the esplanade.  Scooters bedecked with mirrors and lights, Davy Crockett tails and flags.  There was like a big party - they're a very friendly bunch.  Fashions and music of the 60s all around.  About 6000 scooters were expected from clubs around the country, it's one of the biggest rallies of the calendar and very well supported and organised.

Last minute arrivals for the ride-out

 Today we were back again for the 'ride out', and boy, was it a spectacle!  All morning, scooterists had been gathering in a huge car park on the seafront, and at 1 o'clock, their massed ranks formed up and paraded out along the esplanade.  For 20 minutes they just kept streaming out - it was staggering to see.  The noise was almost deafening, and by the end the air was hazy with fumes. 

Ready for the off

 The roads were packed with locals and visitors watching, all enjoying the view.  We never found out the route of the 'ride out' and I'm not at all sure that many of the scooters would have actually made it up the first big hill, let alone all the way round, but for a terrific, fun and good-natured get-together, this was hard to beat.  We spotted a couple of ex-colleagues on one scooter (I nearly knocked the poor lady next to me off her feet with my excitement - oops!) but they'd passed by in a cloud of exhaust fumes before we could get a photo.  Just great, great fun.  And as I type this evening, little groups of scooters are still puttering past the flat.

Well, I thought that was quite enough excitement for one day, so we had a while in the garden, pottering and dead-heading.  Then I heard something that made me stop.  I got N to listen, too, and we both felt it could be a bird of prey.  It was a very distinctive bird cry, and I remembered hearing it a couple of days ago while walking past the church.   We can see the steeple from the flat, and with his binoculars, N could see the bird with it's catch on one of the parapets.  Never ones to miss out on the possibility of a good picture, we headed off down the road, and were rewarded with wonderful (if slightly gory) views of the bird with it's kill.  The people waiting at the bus-stop gave us a few funny looks, but soon they were craning their necks skyward, too.  And the bird of prey?  We are as certain as we can be that it was a peregrine.  And there wasn't just one, but three.  We were just amazed and thrilled to view such a beautiful bird.  Peregrines take their prey in flight, and the pigeon that it was tearing to pieces didn't stand a chance against such a powerful killing machine.  We watched for a while until the peregrine flew off, taking it's dinner with it in it's huge talons.

We are adding peregrine to our list - after all, we were in our garden when we heard it!

All in all, a pretty good day.

(And I must just mention the small matter of the Ashes!!  If you have never listened to cricket commentary on the radio, you are missing an absolute treat.  Great entertainment.)