Once upon a time in a land far away across the ocean, stood a solitary castle, and beside this castle lay a wonderful ring of black asphalt and mirth, a place of legends and fierce battle, the nirvana of every boy and girl (Christine) racers' dream...

To reach this goal would take many long nights of toil over internet websites; many long and stressful phone calls; many long hours of intense battling with the vagaries of AutoRoute; many tortuous miles through North Wales having to obey the speed limits…yet the prize was within our reach, and so the Fellowship of the Donington Ring was reunited once again ...

...let the story commence...!

Well it was a breeze really. All we had to do was to turn up at the appointed time and place (WITH petrol - Gareth even brought his own jerry can, so loyal was he to the cause) and play follow the leader, such was the precision with which Murray had planned and executed this 'military' operation.

Leaving Sprucefield at 06:00 hours precisely, ten of us (on nine bikes) had an uneventful but pleasantly dry ride on empty roads to Dublin. Reaching the toll booth at 07:00hrs, we made quick progress to the docks and boarded what was quite a busy boat to Holyhead. And yes, we've all been there before, €14 for a full breakfast INCLUDING toast and preserves??? I should jolly well think so.

Docking at Holyhead at noon, we refuelled and took the A55 East towards Chester. Roads were fairly busy, primarily with boat traffic, but the weather was more than good to us along the north coast of Wales. Arriving in Hathern around 16:30, there was the usual haggling over the room bookings, and body shuffling between Moors Farm and the two B&B's on either side of it, to accommodate the troops - Christine's bike even got a garage of its own for two nights!

After a quick shower, change of clothes and a coffee on a beautiful evening, we all headed up to the Anchor Inn for tea. Mushy peas were the order of the day, mind you only Gareth managed to source some - and as for Bobby wanting ice cream and custard on his apple and raspberry crumble, it clearly wasn't permitted - they took the ice cream off the plate when it came back from the kitchen with only custard on board.

And so, in the search for cash to help pay for such exorbitance , the intrepid 10 set off in search of a cash machine that didn't charge. '20 minutes that way' according to the lass behind the bar who wasn't from roundabouts anyway - the till at the garage heisted a hefty £1.80 charge for making a withdrawal - at least Dick Turpin wore a mask. We found the till eventually, on the outskirts of Loughborough, 2 miles down the road! At least tea got walked down that evening.

Sunday morning started off pleasantly with the sun streaming into our room around 6am, but by the time we left at 7.45am, it had begun to drizzle. We all made it to the racetrack easily this year, with no-one getting lost - the place was really buzzing at 8 o'clock too.

Even at this early hour of the morning, 'Quote of the Day' must go to a certain a-maze-d gentleman who in all innocence asked 'Does anyone know where the castle is then?' Following the gaze of our eyes over his right shoulder, the outbursts of laughter must have given something away, 'why there it is on top of that lorry!'. (I suppose you had to be there really :) ) We made our way down to the Foggy Esses and pitched a claim on our square footage of real estate for the remainder of the day - no sign of Eddie Floyd this time (we did find him later though up near Melbourne Corner).

By this stage the rain was really coming down heavily, brollys were up, ponchos were out, things weren't looking good for the racing. Nine o'clock saw the 250cc warm up, followed by the MotoGP and the 125cc bikes, all 'treading' through streams of water on the track. By the time the 250cc race had begun at 11.00am, the rain had started to ease and slowly the track began to clear - just as well judging by the number of 'sliders' coming off at the end of the Dunlop Straight.

Colin Edwards started on pole, with Rossi next, then Dani Pedrosa. Nicky Hayden made the second row beside Stoner and Hopkins. Apart from a brief spell early on when Dani Pedrosa led after getting a superb start from third place, Edwards was out in front until lap fifteen. Meanwhile Nicky Hayden took a tumble on lap six - he managed to get back round to the pits and head out on his second bike for whatever reason he thought was sensible? Stoner got away well from fifth place on the grid but almost instantly clipped a white line and lost speed, but like the hare and the tortoise he came back up through the pack eventually taking Edwards and leaving him for dust. And the rest, as they say, is 'his story'.

So what happened to Valentino? His yellow crowd, most of them with wigs on, waited patiently until finally going ballistic as Rossi hit form passing Hopkins into third and looking ready to start his charge. A few corners later with the track drying out, the gauntlet was down, but enter stage left Chris Vermeulen, king of Wet-Wet-Wet-Land who, having started from 12th place on the grid, almost finished what he began in Le Mans, when he passed Rossi four laps from the end.

Final scores on the doors then:
1. Casey Stoner
2. Colin Edwards
3. Chris Vermeulen

Yet another great MotoGP race, most of it captured by Stan with approx. 2500 photos! Not the most nailbiting we'd ever seen, but it sure beats watching on the TV at home! The sound of the bikes alone was well worth the journey over. Next race up was the 125cc's with number 38, Bradley 'Go Brad' Smith starting in ninth position on the grid. For such small capacity bikes they were lapping only 10 seconds slower than Colin Edwards, and 'respect' Brad, for coming in a credible seventh place. By this stage the infield and outfield resembled Glastonbury on a mucky day, though the track was pretty well dry as the rain continued to hold off. Next up was the KTM 990 Super Duke Battle race at 16:00, followed by the Yamaha R6 Cup race to round off the day's racing.

By 18:00 then a lot of the traffic had already gone, allowing us to get back to Hathern in 20 minutes - perfect! Time to have a shower and get changed, we wandered up to the Kings Arms for yet more food, and yes more photos of people eating. Some of us even had starters, main course and dessert, but that would be just over indulgent Gareth and John, wouldn't it...?

Monday morning was GRIM. I mean really grim. Grim as in do-we-have-to-ride-in-this-torrential-rain-grim? I even contemplated riding up to Stranraer to try and avoid it. The forecast was for the wettest day in Britain SINCE RECORDS BEGAN, with 118 flood warnings issued for England and Wales alone. There was a huge depression centred right over North Wales, with gale force northerly winds predicted along the Welsh coast.

And unfortunately for us, the Met Office got it right this time.

We set off at 08:20 bang in the middle of rush hour; the spray on the roads was pretty bad, and steadily got worse until we hit the M6 for 20 miles or so, and came across 2 miles of stationary traffic. OK, so you can still filter on a bike, but remember there were 9 bikes all trying to keep sight of each other, with visibility down to about 70 yards.

We refuelled both bike and body at services just inside the Welsh border with quips from Mr Jolly McDonald such as 'sure it's just liquid sunshine' and 'its just Wales crying because you are leaving'. To which he got 'will it please stop then if I promise to come back?'

Along the A55 the gales were both strong and gusting, and downright dangerous when you got blown into the lane beside you. Made for exciting overtakes I can assure you. To quote Christine when trying to duck the wind, 'my elbows were almost touching my knees I was down that low!'

We eventually outran the rain just before Holyhead and headed into town to refuel. Unfortunately for Team Suzuki, its main rider, Jorge 'John' Magee, decided Right! That was it! He'd had enough and was getting rid of the stupid bike (or words to that effect) when the immobiliser keyfob refused to start his bike due to localised flooding! Ever resourceful, Bobby stepped in and saved the day with a mixture of blowing and vigorous shaking (some say he does that all the time anyway... only joking Bobby!)

It was shortly afterwards that John got changed at the ferry terminal when both sodden and shivering, only to appear in a nice one-piece Suzuki rainsuit…it obviously wasn't wet enough during the 4 previous hours' torrential storm to warrant a full rainsuit! (Seemingly though this didn't fit over his bike jacket which is why he didn't wear it, so apologies John, but I just thought the story was worthy of mention!)

Due to the rough weather the HSS boat was cancelled, and the slow boat was delayed for 30 minutes, but considering there were 126 motorbikes on board lashed down with blue polypropylene rope and homemade granny knots, it was reasonably busy. The three hours and twenty minutes felt like thirty three hours, it went that slowly; we got off around 7pm. A clear run took us up to the toll booths where we regrouped as usual, bade our farewells and broke for the border in true outlaw style...(though not a bandit in sight!)

A trip to remember? Totally. Beyond doubt. Roll on 2008.