Dirty leathers

If you take the long way home twice in a twenty minute journey, it must be a good thing, right?

Delighted to be able to make it back to the regional bike night up here in the wilds, on my own wheels and under my own steam for the first time in a couple of years. Usual malarky, if you're a bikey sort of person. Lots of burgers, people, bikes to see, youngsters on motocrossers displaying and all that khaki jazz. Good stuff. Popped into the Blue Bell for a half of Old Pec (lurve that dangerous stuff, but more than a half of anything and riding, well they mix not), they had a decent rock tribute act on and I could have stayed there all night, but things to see etc. Would have asked the two lady plods who'd covered their cap badges with smiley face stickers for a picture, but the moment passed in a flash, and anyway, I had things to do which involved an osterich burger - low in cholesteral and not in taste, so all is well there. Anyway, the bike's the star and had a most pleasant bimble there and back again - the fast road on the way there (something burning just where I took that nuke picture the other night, but not sure what, didn't take time to stop), and enjoyed the twisties on the way back. So, when the twisties ran out, and I should have joined the dual carriage way, I decided to take the scenic route, well out of my way; and when it came time to turn off to find my street, I thought "naaaah", and headed off for another two mile diversion and just another couple of minutes in the saddle. And surely, isn't that what it's supposed to be about?

Days?

Is it Monday today? I'm disorientated again. It's the ten day stretch again, even though I took a day off on Friday, today feels like Sunday for some reason. Hey ho. Anyways up, got myself a civilised shift in the fun factory at half eleven which is even weirder. My body clock is totally mashed. Waaaaaaah!!!

Perfect

If they made a camera that could properly capture this sunset, I'd be a happy man. If I could have found somewhere to stop and grab this image ten minutes earlier when the sky was lit up like a great big fruit dessert, I'd have been happier. Incredible colours.

Or did somebody just nuke Scunthorpe?

A bad day...

... at the base beats a good day at work. That's a geek cliche. But let's add it up; two days at the range and an evening of perfect light at TyphoonHome, with bugger all moving at any of them except the grass. That's a lot of petrol burnt, as Hermann's not shy of shouting "feed me, Seymour" when it comes to the petrol consumption stakes. Worth it though. If nothing else, it's done my tan good, and it's good to get out and smell the breeze.

Bad light stopped play

Not that I missed a lot, had the old airband radio on in the kitchen, and not a squeak from where I intended to go. But it was a grey old nothing of a day, and the big zoom on the camera needs good light to get the best from it, so I decided to leave it for another day. Hey ho.

Zoom!

Task for the day. Try to see something fly. Location of choice, the local bombing range. Tried to do it on Wednesday but failed due to slackness (much annoyance there), and tried yesterday but foiled by the fact that nothing was flying. Doh. Wonder what'll screw it up for me today?

Events

Well, folks always remember where they were when the big pop culture events happened - 9/11 (at work on the big x-ray down south); Diana (pissed off my brains at a Rocky Horror night); JFK (not born). So, for the record, when the Jackson news broke, I was asleep in front of a telly that had been showing Buzzcocks, but was poked awake to see News24 and to be not quite sure I wasn't dreaming. Actually, would have been parking up Mr Zed from the trip home from work as they were doing the CPR. Right, that's that. Funny, it was a lovely evening to ride over here... sometimes when you're going past the oil jetty, the tide's in and the sun is setting the dock's almost pretty.

So. Mr Zed. He's still wonderful. The new engine probably isn't as interesting as the rebuild will be when we finally get it sorted, but I've been blatting about a bit this week, and even using him to commute, even though I really don't want to do that - rather I'm using it as an opportunity to get my two wheeled hours back and get my skills sharpened up. The skills that need sharpening include how to wear a backplate; glad to say I've got that sorted. But the first time out I hadn't, the thing rode up far to high and was poking into the back of my neck the whole damned trip. Glad I didn't bin it, that'd have meant the Christopher Reeve effect for sure. Hope to get the beasty into Lincoln for the weekend to get his security system sorted out, as it's been out of action for a good long while, since water ingress in France a few years back. Now that he's running, it becomes relevent again.

Upside Down

So I'm up at five to one in the morning, listening to Radio 4 repeats, feeling pretty sparky and wakey and wondering why there's no wine or orange juice in the house and wanting to reboot what still remains of my body clock - must have been working a week of nights again. Think the highlight of the week was freeing some pidgeons from snare traps atop a very tall place on the east coast while we were watching out for miscreants, while the nearest thing to a proper operational tasking was a anticlimatic clusterfuck of simply epic proportions that'll bore me for life. The "wakey at stupid hours of the night" aspects were suspiciously alright, and I have to confess that on the whole I considered the week a positive thing, good to get the team away from the rattle and hum of the ordinary working day. Would have been nice to achive something for all that physical distress though. Two pidgeons saved, while pretty good on the karma front, and the foxes (2) and badger (1) that we saw while out and about (which was interesting) really aren't what the government deploys an expensive team of trained law enforcers for.

Anyways up, it's been a while, where are we with things then? First off, I'm mobile again, twice so. Most recently, the big shouty green motorbike that's been in pieces in my drive for the last year and ten months since it's engine went splut, and was more recently causing heartache when the rebuilt engine had a failure is rebuilt, adjusted, and much to my suprise sailed through it's MOT with only the one snag, which the garage botched a fix on and passed it rather than a fail, an expensive part, another test fee... all in all the sort of thing this garage USED to do when they were smaller and still cool. In fact, I have allocated them Good Chap points, which is something they've not had in years, since they started doing things professionally.

Also, we have wheels(4) again. Since GLC popped it's cloggs (corpse still to be found outside my house while I try to arrange burial, which is a sod to do when you're living at the other end of the day to all the rest of the people in the world, especially the scrap dealers), transportation has been a tad difficult to say the least. I was shopping around for a runabout to use while I arranged a permanent and more serious investment; a naughty Hyundai was the order of the day, and I was making quite a bit of effort in locating such a strumpet, but the best ones are all some way away and it takes some doing. So.... a runabout was in order, say five hundred quid or so on a Fiesta, an Astra, that sort of thing. What happened instead was, in the true style of this house both silly, and indicative as to how much I hate car shopping. Sitting in my drive now is what I have named for the moment, in lieu of having a better idea, Hermann. Short for "Hermann the German", you see. He's old, but he's good. He cost less than a grand, and I think I may have a silly new hobby. I've already spent money on him, and even cleaned him, and I never do that. Beemer 328i 2.8l coupe, very silly, leather interior and an engine that sings you songs when you give it the berries and it gets to eat all your money in fuel. And most importantly, he's the same colour as my bikes. Hmmm. Is the unholy trinity complete?