London is my laudanum

"Christmas ain't Christmas till somebody cries," according to Donkey in Shrek. After a week of travelling, over-eating, arguing about the rules of family games (it turns out I've been playing The London Game to a totally different set of rules to the ones in the box. No wonder I win so often!), sitting in queues on the A1, watching the chickens, breathing in sparkling country air and falling over the dog, I have said "Amen" to that and fled. I'm not a Londoner by birth - then again, who is?! - but as I walked across the top of Trafalgar Square last night on my way to meet a friend for new year drinks (Shame on you, Albannach, by the way: what kind of Scottish bar closes on a Sunday night?!), trampling the tourists, despairing at the anorexic Christmas tree, checking out the roller-dudes in front of the National Gallery, and feeling the festive stress being soothed away by the noise, the bright lights and the chaos (though three pints of Caffrey's in Waxy's probably helped tip the balance) I have finally admitted to myself that this filthy, fetid, glorious pile of a city is home.

(I've also resolved that wherever I go for Christmas next year, I'm taking the bike. I've been getting the DTs).

Happy Christmas

The bikes are 370 miles away and I miss them. So to cheer myself up here is a picture from the Unity Ride team - the day raised £5400 for Children in Need and Help a London Child. As it will only buy him half a BMW Pudsey has decided to hand the cheques over.



I have also been cheered by Christmas Greetings from Mark and Jo at Ride of Your Life




and from Frank, Carol and the Thundersprint team.




Thanks and Christmas greetings to everyone who has been part of my biker life this year - I may ride on my own a lot but I'm never alone.

News from abroad

This message from my brother arrived today:

"Passed my bike test today - the u-turns were a bitch and I had to do 7 ! 4 offical ones and 3 when I was doing my emergency braking. Had two goes at the emergency stop too as I locked up the rear wheel and drew a 7m skid (didn't even know I was on the back brake!!) Left the rear alone on the second go - much better. I will be continuing lessons - John my instructor was been riding 45 years, I've been riding 4.5 hours...I belive he has much more to teach me. Racks on, racks off..."

So we have become a whole family of bikers! (but can I just point out that - not counting my dad, who got his licence in the 1950s - I was the first and they are all copying me? When you are the youngest, these things become important.) Note that sucking at U-turns is clearly genetic.

Rhythm and Blues

Ruby and I are struggling to find our rhythm. If this was a new relationship we'd be at the stage where, instead of locking lips you bump noses, and instead of sliding elegantly under the sheets for some well-deserved Sherlocking you accidentally knee your partner in the gnarly parts, but those few, elusive moments when it all comes together make it worth persevering.

Today has been a classic demonstration that my mood affects my motor skills. Under the blue, if baltic, skies in the morning we had a fantastic time dodging the hazards in Hackney, doing an (almost feet up) u-ey to go south instead of north on the A10 having got turned round in the Home Zone, and cruising the deserted City. In the evening, large parts of North London snarled to a halt (I think Arsenal are playing). Every gap closed as I headed into it, the gearbox refused to slip into first and we kangarooed our way away from the lights in 2nd gear to the smell of burning clutch. Particular curses and opprobium on the Arthur Daley impersonator, who, when I backed away from attempting to squeeze between his beat-up Jag and a white van to my right, opened his door and ostentatiously checked for scratches on his paintwork. Both barrels of the Touratech spots to you, mate!

Then on the last corner before home we had a lairy moment on a manhole cover. Three cheers to the off-road day: I stuck my foot out, gave it some throttle (probably exceeding my 4k run-in ceiling) and we fishtailed our way back to balance.

The indicators are still giving me grief. A warning to London GS riders - if you see someone staring intently at your right hand, they're not mistakenly trying to work out your marital status, it's me, trying to see how other people approach this Gordian knot.

And I had forgotten how damn hard it is to attach a Baglux tank harness - hence the undignified lash-up shown in the pic! At least the duffel is colour-co-ordinated. If anyone's done this for a 2007 GS, please send me some tips!

Easily pleased

Santa has come early. I have of course been a good girl this year so he has brought me a Baglux tank harness. This means that until I have saved up the arm and the leg required for my metal mule luggage I at least have somewhere to stow camera and spare knickers.

Oh dear

It seems I have bought a lifestyle after all.

"Thank you for purchasing a BMW motorcycle.

Being a BMW motorcycle owner means that you have access to a lifetyle on two wheels that no other motor manufacturer can offer."

That Extra Half an Inch

My frailties have found me out. It wasn't the 6 hours out in the rain. It wasn't the aching back caused by riding in a rucksack. It wasn't my poor night vision (now resolved by extra Touratech riding lights).

It's the BMW thumb dance.

Both my observers spotted the problems I was having cancelling the indicators and (helpfully both being on GSs - I like to be co-ordinated) showed me how they did it - a sideways stretch of the thumb, and a flick of the swith with the knuckle.

Which would be great, if it weren't for the fact that my right thumb reaches about half an inch less far than my left, thanks to the two-inch scar across my palm where "keyhole surgery" mitigated my RSI five years ago. (GOK what key the surgeon had in mind, maybe this one --->) and it doesn't actually reach the edge of the switch. So to cancel the indicators I had to resort to an awkward circular wiggle and push.

Nerves are strange things and it doesn't take much to upset them - one of the reasons I prefer a bike to a car is that holding a steering wheel triggers the pain, while holding a throttle doesn't.

I live in denial of my physical limitations. But yesterday's thumb dance has left me today with an arm on fire from fingertip to shoulder.

The Arthritis people have a bleak joke. Arthritis, they say, won't kill you - it will just take your life. That's pretty much where I am this morning - I have bought a motorcycle perfect in every regard - except that I might not be able to ride it safely because of something that went wrong for me years and years ago.

Perhaps indicating is over-rated. Hand signals, anyone?

Meet Ruby Thursday

Proving Haylock's First Law of Meterology, this was the view from the kitchen window this morning. Last Thursday, when I wasn't collecting a brand new motorcycle, was bright and sunny. The universe doesn't like to allow us too much fun in any one particular day.

BMW also like to torture you by making you fill out innumberable forms in triplicate while sitting next to the shiny bike you are buying but not yet allowed to play with . The free coffee doesn't really compensate for the mental torture. Reading the small print after signing (oops) I am a little peturbed to find that I have agreed to keep the bike clean. Given a choice between riding and polishing, there's only ever going to be one answer...

Buying some gnarly parts (extra spotlights at the front - truly magnificent, lit up every piece of hi-viz for miles) meant that panniers have had to wait for another pay day, but I am rapidly changing my mind on this after breaking the habit of a lifetime and riding home with my work gear stuffed in a rucksack. Hate it. Can't move on the bike properly, the straps flap about and it makes my back hurt. Maybe I can sell a kidney on ebay or something...

Anyway - here she is. Being something of a diva she wanted to pose at Ally Pally in the hope of being talent-spotted by the BBC and signed up to the next Charley Boorman adventure. The fact that it was dark made no difference.

Ruby poses at Ally Pally

Point and Pray

Had the very good fortune to hear a presentation by Andy Ibbott of the California Superbike School last night (it doesn't just do California, it's not just for superbikes, but you will learn a lot).

The biker boffins at CSS have broken cornering down into 49 separate activities, and given them slightly saucy names like the "hip flick" and the "knee to knee".

Pointing the front wheel in vaguely the right direction, closing your eyes and praying to God are not, apparently, three of them.

Dreams of Glory

I managed to sneak in a quick circuit of the National Motorcycle Museum on Thursday.

To me, there's something wrong about the hushed silence blanketing the chrome, leather and livery of so many extraordinary motorcycles. Like a pack of greyhounds ready to race, you should be able to hear them a mile off.

Still, while the silence may be wrong, if you stand in the right place, you can catch just a trace of oil, hot metal and burning rubber. And there's always at least one innocent looking old boy ready to tell tales of the time they terrified their fiance taking them pillion on a Vincent Black Shadow, or dropped into France with the parachute bike falling behind them...