As I peered into Facebook this morning an old mate was
posting photos of the motorbikes he’s restored and is now driving about. This
got me thinking… I’ve had four motorbikes and I don’t miss any of them.
My first motorbike was a Suzuki AP50 which I destroyed by
driving straight into the back of a car driven by my aunt’s ex-boyfriend (woops!)
I replaced it with a Honda CB100 which I had for six
months; over four of which it spent in the workshops of Hastings Motorcycles.
Despite being the only five-star Honda dealer in Sussex they couldn’t get the
parts for it.
I gave up waiting and got a Suzuki GSX250 which I drove for
a few years. My most vivid memory of it is skidding in oil in Cornwallis
Gardens (in Hastings) and then skidding up the road with the bike
pinning my ankle down as we scraped along the tarmac. After a couple of years
the thing finally fell to bits. I eventually sold it to a friend of my father
who wanted it for moto-cross. When that went I resorted to a pedal bike for
fifteen years.
When we came back from the scouts holiday in Canada in 2000
I had a lot of money left over (the holiday turned out to be far cheaper
than we had thought it would be), and in a fit of nostalgia for an age that
never existed I got another motorbike. A Suzuki GSX650. I drove it for some
time, but I have no happy memories of that bike at all. I can remember riding
it through the rain to a works meeting in Margate, and sitting in the meeting
in wet shirt and trousers as my so-called waterproofs were hung out steaming over
a range of chairs. I can remember riding it to a works meeting in Milton
Keynes, arriving with serious backache, and wondering about abandoning it and
taking the train home. Eventually I gave up with the bike when it was in for a
service and I borrowed “er indoors TM” car. It
didn’t hurt to drive the car, I could carry more luggage than I could shove up
my jumper, and I wasn’t in permanent fear of being wiped off the road by every
passing vehicle that was bigger than a go-kart.
Motorbikes are all very well when it’s not raining, you’ve
not got far to go, and there’s no other idiots on the road.
I munzed, got Wordle (datum – what a silly word) on
the fourth attempt, put some washing in to scrub, woke the dogs, and once
they’d had brekkie I took them out.
As we drove to the woods the pundits on the radio were
interviewing the shadow chancellor of the exchequer who, like many politicians,
was spouting drivel. He started off banging on about how only the Conservative
party could be trusted with the country’s economy, and then was apologizing for
the utter financial balls-up that the Liz Truss government had made. After a
little squabbling he took the standard fall-back position of all politicians “vote
for me – I’m not as bad as the others”.
We got to the woods. We started our walk. As we walked my
birdsong app detected a redstart, or so it claimed. Gordon downloaded the same
app yesterday and it thought his dog Norton was Norton’s panting was a ring-necked
duck. We saw the pink flowers I’ve seen all over the woods recently. A friend
has told me they are foxgloves.
And we saw a song thrush’s egg – sadly laying broken on the
ground. How did it get there? I always thought they nested earlier in the
year?
After a couple of miles
the drizzle started, and the drizzle soon became rain. We shortened our walk,
and rather than five miles we walked three and a half, and weren’t *that*
wet when we got back to the car.
We came home. I hung out the washing, set the undercrackers
tumble-drying and did some CPD until the rain eased up.
I went into the garden and got half of the lawn edging
painted. I trimmed back the roses hanging over the fence from not-so-nice-next-door.
Just how far is it reasonable for her roses to come over the fence? Am I being
unreasonable in thinking they shouldn’t scratch my head as I walk the stepping-stones
which run up the middle of my garden? I mowed the lawn, and trimmed round the
stepping-stones.
After two and a half hours the rain started again so I came
in. And (sadly) after two and a half hours the garden looked much the
same as when I’d started.
I looked at my phone – this morning’s post to Facebook came
up, and below the post was a new button – Facebook’s AI saying “More about
Fat Baldy’s Adventures”. I clicked on it but was disappointed. If it wants
to know more about Fat Baldy it only has to read my blog. As for what adventure
Fat Baldy would like to have… hope springs eternal.
I then spent a little while solving geo-puzzles. I think
the idea was that I was supposed to go to certain locations, but I could get
the information easily enough from Google Street View. That saved some farting
about.
“Daddies’ Little Angel TM” is visiting…
she’s boiling up dinner.
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