Transport of Delight

Girl, put your hi-viz on

2012-01-27T14:48:00.002+01:00

Something dreadful has happened to me. I have become a bus commuter. I was spoilt by riding the beautiful hot roads of South West Australia and since I came home the prospect of breaking 2Moos out of the garage, riding to work in the wet and the cold and the slime, and repeating the operation in reverse at the end of the day just hasn't appealed. As I lamented before Christmas, in the absence of any parking spaces at work my only alternative is to get the Guided Bus. There are severe limitations to this as a mode of transport, not least that the cheap one (Whippet - I wonder if the Tight Fisted Northerner stereotype was deliberate?) ends at 5 to 8, when the night is yet young. But it turns out I do quite enjoy the 2-mile cycle to and from the bus stop. I have my "Now's the Time" hi-viz jacket and a pair of robust boots. Except last Friday when I had my Now's the Time hi-viz and a pair of 7-inch heels with flames down the side. And I pay £12.50 for the week. I had to take 2Moos to the office yesterday and - quelle horreur - I didn't enjoy it. What on earth is going on? Have I been abducted and replaced by an imposter?

Back to work

2012-01-16T08:46:00.000+01:00

This hasn't really done justice to the amazing colours in the sky!

2 down, 48 to go :)

2012-01-14T07:15:00.000+01:00

Scores on the doors

2012-01-10T07:48:00.005+01:00

Miles travelled: 1983
Koalas photographed: 11
Days on the road: 8
Dolphins seen: 7
Bikes ridden: 4
Swedish barmaids met: 2
Lighthouses climbed: 2
Emus spotted: 1
Lookout trees climbed: 1/2

The view from Albany

2012-01-09T15:59:00.000+01:00

Greetings from Albany

2012-01-08T13:18:00.001+01:00

I am staying in a motel getting ready for a long day tomorrow getting my hire bike back to Rockingham. It's very exciting, i've never stayed in a motel before. The bike is parked outside my door, as is correct form. I have a fridge and a toaster. Sadly I don't have my preferred wash kit - as I headed towards the Stirling Range I started to wonder why I could see yellow in my mirror when my jacket, the bike and the panniers come in black, white and blue. The answer, as I'm sure you've figured out quicker than me, is that the pannier lid has come open and was wantonly displaying my exped drybag. And no longer carrying a Cath Kidston wash bag with a rather nice Clarins moisturiser in it. I left the mountains looking mysterious in the distance and rode back to see if I could find it, but I think the roos have made off with it. So I am abluting, under a shower of frankly awesome power, with the best that the Coles Express can offer. Which actually isn't too bad. And my VB stubby is chilling in the fridge. I am eating junk food and watching Neil Oliver on the telly. It has been a great trip, and I am ready to go home now.

D'entrecasteaux point

2012-01-07T08:39:00.000+01:00

There are days when I think my life has been damaged by too many wrong decisions. If those days come again I shall remind myself that all those choices brought me here, to the south coast of Australia. What an incredible blessing, to have ridden here on a bike, to be sitting warmed by the sun and looking out at the beautiful colours of the ocean.

sadface

2012-01-05T11:05:00.000+01:00

I wanted to ride to this lookout and watch the sunset over the ocean. I've even been a little way down the unsealed road, but it's not nearby, and if I drop this bike I'll forfeit $3,000. Bugger.

Cruising for birds on the Blackwood River

2012-01-05T05:41:00.000+01:00

The water is the same colour as the peaty water in the Highlands. Wonder if it would make good whisky?

Barrels Round

2012-01-04T08:56:00.000+01:00

I am in the Margaret River Wine region. I tried a Cellar Door, where the wineries do tastings and sell bottles. They wouldn't serve me. So I have come to the Bootleg Beer Company instead, where I am having a middy of their least strong brew, which is Tom's Amber Ale. It was $6 - is beer expensive on Australia or is it because this is a boutique brew?

Spotted one in the wild!

2012-01-04T04:24:00.000+01:00

Biker's Paradise!

2012-01-03T06:50:00.000+01:00

Omnia sol temperat

2012-01-01T23:56:00.004+01:00

Rental bikes don't come cheap. In order to get my money's worth, I need to have around £100-worth of fun every day. What does that look like? About 25 pints of beer? I have downed that many in a day, but it was a long time ago and I'm not sure it was fun even then. Maybe it's more like a ticket to a West End show, a meal before it with friends and a couple of drinks in the interval. Every day for the next ten days. I can live with that ;)

This Bandit is a sweet, sweet bike. I feel rather closer to the ground than normal, but I can finally do all those things I've practised on Norfolk airfields including the feet-up U turn, though I have not yet ventured one on full lock. No point tempting fate, and I've already heard the expensive crunchy sound of plastic on tarmac twice this trip, both times my camera slipping off the bike seat and hitting the deck. Why so many U-turns? Because this bike doesn't have a GPS. I have a good map and the number of roads available to choose from is closer to Caithness than Camden, so I think I will be OK - and in a slightly Spartan way I think it's good for me to practise the discipline of looking at maps and trying to remember them rather than just blind following.

For New Year's Day I rode up the coast, past the dog-walkers, joggers and surfers who were out and about. I'd say "making the most of the sunshine' but this is one of the big things you have to know about Australia. You probably know already, but it's different when you're feeling it for yourself. It's always sunny. Every day. This creates a very different head-space. If this were a summer morning in Blighty I'd be thinking, "Oh, sunny again, great! Wonder how long it will last?" Like hungry people or binge drinkers, there would be a feeling of needing to grab it all before it's gone. Here there's none of that panic. The sun shines, you put on your protection and go out and have a ball, and you can do the same again the next day. It creates relaxation.

The other thing about Australia that you might know in your head but not in your spine is how big it is, and how thinly spread the people are. I followed the coast to Yanchep, where there's a National Park with koala bears. Tourist photos in the bag, I headed back into farming country to New Norcia via Mogumber, These towns are marked on the map....Mogumber is a railway crossing and a tavern. New Norcia is a very odd collection of Benedictine monastic buildings. Between them were miles of warm, well-kept tarmac roads with bugger-all other traffic. I realised that carrying water isn't necessary for comfort and feeling a bit thirsty. It's because if I have a problem in a place with no mobile reception I'll be waiting a very long time for someone to come along.

So: New Year's Day was all about hot, red roads, the brilliant colours of the roadside flowers, flashes of bright red and green from the parrots as I scared them up from the verge, and one-horse towns. I stopped into the Mogumber Tavern for a cold drink. A cattle dog inspected me on the porch - I passed and got a wag of the tail. Inside an old guy with legs as leathery as his thongs said "G'day! How ya going." It's a fantastically warm greeting and "Very well thank you, how do you do?" seems inadequately British in response. He wished me an increase in happiness and I sat at the bar in my un-natural fibre mesh jacket feeling very out of place. I'll do better next time...I'll leave the jacket on the bike! (and I'll practice "How do you do? " in my best Betty and Phil voice. I'm a tourist, I might as well sound like one!)

Today I start south :)

Reasons to Love Australia

2012-01-01T00:47:00.004+01:00

This picture shows you one of the main reasons I'm really liking Australia. The first reason is, of course, that it seems to be full of really, really lovely people. I'm open to the idea that it's just the ones I've met, but so far it's pretty much a 100% success rate.

The other reason is that it's very bike-friendly. This is a tourist brochure for Australia's South West, where I'm going on the bike tomorrow. If you look carefully there are 2 bikers in the photos, just doing tourist things and clearly being seen as the kind of people you might like to have visiting your region.

This just wouldn't happen in the UK.

Anyway, that small spot of politics aside, Happy New Year. It is warm and sunny here, and I am about to lard on the factor 30 and go hunt some koala bears.

Back on track, I think.

2011-12-31T15:01:00.003+01:00

These are my new wheels. The GS had a problem which made it surge like a rocking horse. Also the "Service Due" indicator was showing. If I'd paid a bargain price I'd have settled for a knackered old shed but this was top dollar. So after a short breakdown last night, this morning saw me and Woody The Sweeper returning the GS before heading up the coast for a coffee and to await a call from Colin of Sunset Motorcycle Hire, who opened up specially for me on New Year's Eve so that I could take possession of a rather nice 1200 Bandit. I was very happy on the GS, because I know how to ride a Gnarly Thing, while the Bandit is an unknown quantity and has no GPS. I will have to rely on paper mapping and following people.

Happy New Year's Eve Eve

2011-12-30T17:04:00.003+01:00

Things have not been going marvellously. Hence the absence of photos of me riding bikes and having a fantastic time. I had a brilliant ride out on Wednesday with an amazing bunch of guys called the Blue Knights and I will write more about that; and today the very lovely @sharemyoyster took me up the Swan Valley (which is a place, not a Carry On title) for coffee and ice cream. Tomorrow I have to swop a decrepit rental GS for something that I actually trust to ride roads that don't see a passing car for a day. Wish me luck.

Me, looking hot ;)

2011-12-29T16:01:00.001+01:00

The smart locals park in the shade.

And breathe ...

2011-12-27T10:06:00.000+01:00

Day three in the Big Brother house. Highwaylass is in the drive being shown a very shiny motorcycle. It's early evening here, the roads are still holiday quiet and ideal for trying out a very different bike to the tractors I normally ride. Tomorrow I am going on a ride-out to York with some friendly local riders. I have said as often as I can "slow rider: borrowed bike" in an effort to pre-empt any exploration of the scenery.

Surely some mistake...

2011-12-26T01:09:00.000+01:00

No postie bike in the postie game!

Boxing Day

2011-12-25T22:33:00.001+01:00

It's 5.20am here in Perth and it's a beautiful morning....at home it's still yesterday.

I'd like to say the flight was uneventful but it actually involved my own personal oxygen tank so that would be a big fat lie. It turns out that when you find a member of cabin crew, explain that you are having an allergy problem with something on the plane (I think it was to the cheap seats, the first leg was fine!), are having problems breathing and wondered if they had an antihistamine available they take it very seriously. Or possibly they were bored and wanted to practice using all the kit. So the first half of the journey was very lovely and the second half very miserable. I guess that averages out!

This is what money buys you

2011-12-24T07:42:00.000+01:00

Outside the airport is rammed. I have the Business Lounge and its buffet breakfast to myself. A waitress has just brought out a bottle of champagne. Is 6.45 too early for a Bucks Fizz?

Waiting....

2011-12-24T06:22:00.000+01:00

I am about to be deprived of internet access for 36 hours. Like a detective in an HP Lovecraft novel, my sanity may not survive.....

Let us go then, you and I

2011-12-23T12:37:00.000+01:00

It's the day before Christmas Eve. Or, in my personal festive itinerary, the day before I fly to Australia. The last time I was this impatient to get to Christmas my brother made me sort his plastic soldiers into Germans (pale blue, if I remember correctly); Brits (olive green); and Yanks (beige), to make it simpler for him to line them up in the sandpit before he shot them with his air pistol. Happy days...!

In the absence of small soldiers or big brothers, I am whiling the day away in one of my favourite places on earth (no, not the front row of a Lee Mead gig, that was last night) - Trafalgar Square. I have a rather watery coffee, a window seat and a very heavy bag. If I didn't have the bag I could go and have a look at the National Portrait Gallery, which I also love. When I was 17 a Frenchman offered to take me home from there and paint my portrait. I felt this was a rather long-term prospect and I had a date with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes in the Wyndham Theatre that evening so I declined, as politely as possible, wondering what he saw in a hefty teenager from Macclesfield.

Maybe I will trust the bag to left luggage....i've got my passport & my bike licence in my pocket, that's all I really need for a successful trip.

I left London to make someone else happy (it didn't work). One of my resolutions for next year is to base decisions on what will make me happy. Even writing that down makes me feel selfish. But I think it's a healthy selfishness. Like the rule with oxygen masks - in the event of cabin depressurisation, put your own on before helping anyone else. You're not going to be helpful if you're blue with oxygen deprivation. Or unhappiness.

In 24 hours I will have been in the air for 2 hours. If I see Santa up there I will ask him to bring you peace, happiness and good friends. Because if you've got those, you'll have everything you really need for a successful year.

Happy Chrismas Eve Eve. I love you all xx

Preparations for Australia #5: Leaving on a Jet Plane

2011-12-20T22:59:00.003+01:00

I pack more than this for a weekend in Hayfield. Though the fact the bag is mostly full of dinky sundresses wholly inadequate for a British campside in July has helped to save a lot of space.

I find packing incredibly difficult. This is my first solo long-haul trip since - well, ever. It's not like I didn't make all the travel arrangements when I had an other half, and I am going to a place where most things that I may have forgotten can be obtained with a credit card - not sure what the position is on size 10 ladies shoes, but other than that I reckon I should be fine - it's just becoming harder every time I do it.

The situation is not helped by massive work stress. I live in a happy rose-tinted world where the fact that you were hired to do a job matches up with the fact that it needs doing, you do it well, and everyone is happy. What I can't cope with is having to fight for the opportunity to get off the starting blocks - after being hired to do the job in the first place. This is my problem not theirs, it must be because the same difficulty has followed me round in my various employments. I have to manage another day and a half before I get to leave it all behind, if only for a little while. First I head to London to celebrate Christmas with Lee Mead and some very fine lady friends, and then it will be about another 24 hours before check-in. I was worried about the plane journey but after this week even a screaming baby in the next seat will be a welcome relief.

All I want for Christmas...

2011-12-16T14:56:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was our works Christmas do, which involved a Secret Santa with a £5 budget*. I had to buy my Secret Santee 2 bottles of beer, because though he's a lovely bloke, his hobby is MC-ing and there's not much in the way of equipment for that you can buy for less than a fiver. Which slightly disproves my theory about hobbies making you easier to buy for. Though the fact that my Secret Santa bought me Red Tape and White Knuckles suggests it may still be true for bikers.

When she decloaked at the end of the karaoke I realised why we'd been having quite such an intense conversation over the turkey about who writes the best motorcycle travel books. I always feel slightly aggrieved that Lois stole my life - bright red hair? Yep. Also does music? Yep. Rides bikes and writes witty self-deprecating stories about the experience? Well, I like to think so. Hopefully this globe will be big enough for the both of us!

In other news, because I was a dirty stop-out (missed my bus home) last night I had to go and buy something to change into (party dress not really the thing for dress-down Friday!) and am Very Happy that these jeans are 2 sizes smaller than the previous ones.

* it also involved a 12-hour drinking session and karaoke. We take our fun seriously in the FlatLands.

Many bike based adventures

2011-12-15T00:16:00.004+01:00

It has been an expensive day. 2Moos has new tyres, I have a new haircut and my bank balance has £450 less in it than was there this morning.

Neither of these items could be postponed. The tyres are both flat and bald, leading to some very squirrely white line moments on these cold greasy mornings; and though my hair might not be bald it is certainly grey in parts it should not be, especially with a works party tomorrow and a holiday coming up.

After entrusting 2Moos to Phil at Cambridge Motorcycles I folded myself onto the tiny Suzuki and had an equally diminutive espresso from Christina to kickstart the day - but when I went back to the Suzuki a few hours later for the return journey to collect a freshly reshod Africa Twin, the battery gave the engine one limp spin and died.

Not really good news on a freezing cold night and with a pressing appointment for a new coat of dye.

So I called Phil, and he said give me five minutes and I'll come round in the van. I lurked on the street corner, fortunately not reciving any offers, until the van arrived and Phil opened the back doors to reveal....a rather small moped. Which didn't seem a fair swop for an Africa Twin, even if one of the heated grips isn't working and the high beam switch keeps getting stuck on.

One short van ride later and a brief pause to admire the Cambridge Motorcycles tree, I was back where I am supposed to be - on a large Gnarly Thing, which feels at least 2 inches taller on new rubber.

Back to the office, grab stuff, run to Toni & Guy for what is a really rather splendid retouch, then to the Hungry Horse to catch up with some biker friends. One of whom was the wronged party in this case, which is on my mind these dark evenings when cyclists ride with no lights and then write to the Cambridge News claiming that the only person they are endangering is themselves. Not so.

And now I'm shivering next to my hot water bottle and consoling myself with the thought that in 10 days I will be on a plane, migrating south.

Preparations for Australia #4

2011-12-12T22:25:00.003+01:00

I am a feminist. I disapprove of the time and effort modern culture requires to be expended in depilation to make adult women resemble Thai ladyboys. However, I am also vain. Being 6 ft tall and fond of comfortable shoes, I fear that arriving in a Hot Nation with furry thighs and a swimsuit will leave no doubt as to which end of the Oval I bowl from. So I have invested in the instrument of torture known as the Epilator. The last two hours have revealed two useful facts. The first is that pain isn't what it used to be. The first time I tried one of these I had to give up after 20 minutes and take it back to the shop. All that falling on my head has at least been good for something. The second is that I have a *lot* of scars on my legs. I'm really bad at shaving. Thank god dowager beard-dom remains some years away. The third is that "perfect results in minutes" is either a lie or is based on a test subject with significantly shorter legs than me.

Preparations for Australia #3

2011-12-09T08:45:00.001+01:00

I am given to understand that Australia is a toasty nation ("it will be Bloody Hot"), a thought of great comfort as I shiver in my bedsocks and mahoosive Aran jumper. (It was a present from a friend of my dad's when I was at uni - something went wrong with the measurements and it reaches to my knees). In anticipation, I have made a sunhat, ably modelled here by the Ducati Puppy.

For those who like to know such things, the yarn is Blue Sky Alpaca Organic Cotton and the pattern is a free download from Lion Brand Yarns in the USA.

It's getting a bit chilly

2011-12-05T14:45:00.005+01:00

The past few days there's been frost on the car in the mornings, which makes me feel bad because I know I have to put it in the garage but there's not room. And then I start to feel anxious about the arrival of winter. I'm not a fair weather rider by any means and I'm a very happy bike commuter but this is the first year that I've had to ride to work with no real alternative. When I lived in London I could ride, or take the bus, or take the tube or even the train. When I worked in Coventry it was take the bike, with an option of a fairly straightforward car journey with a guaranteed parking space outside the office, because it was on a barren industrial estate next to the world's ugliest hotel. Now I live in the boonies and my village has no public transport. I could theoretically drive to work, if by driving you meant sitting in a queue for at least 45 minutes and having nowhere to park at the end of the interminable wait. So I really don't know what I'm going to do in January and February when the snow and ice arrive. Last year I was working from home, which was lonely and expensive on the central heating, but did mean that getting to work was a straightforward affair. Maybe I need to find temporary winter quarters in the centre of town.

Happy December

2011-12-01T08:35:00.004+01:00

Not only is it the 1st of December, it's Happy New (Old) Trousers day. While I am loathe to prove that, at the root of everything, ladies are indeed obsessed with matters of weight and body image, I am very excited to report that today was the first day I got back into my Belstaff winter trousers. I had to retire them last year in favour of a special pair of Fat Bastard-sized Hein Gericke ones owing to an unfortunate tendency to comfort eat when unhappy. While there is some way to go before, to quote acam@cix's excellent gender-neutral weight loss goal, "I'm fucking Kate Moss," it is a source of significant joy that I am at least making progress.

Preparations for Australia #2

2011-11-28T14:34:00.003+01:00

This is where I'm going to be riding. The Aussie sent it to me to console me for the fact that he's going to be doing a double shift at work instead of riding with me. As the south-west corner used to be his manor, my hopes are high for great roads and excellent pubs.

The other fantastic thing about this route is that it includes a Giant Ram. I have only just discovered that Australia is famous for its Big Things. I feel a calling to visit them all by motorcycle...

Preparations for Australia #1

2011-11-23T00:56:00.004+01:00

These are the important necessities which I have gathered so far. In no particular order, they are:-

small purple sundress (diet is going well; hopefully in 4 weeks time I will no longer be at risk of being harpooned by the Japanese).
kick-ass noise isolating headphones for the flight.
Sam Manicom's book, Under Asian Skies, which includes his travels in Australia.
2 books by Simon Gandolfi.
HEMA's Australia Motocycle Atlas - Peter Thoeming reviews 200 of the best motorcycle roads so I will know which ones to aim for.
upper-crust cabin bag.

I'm planning to buy Nathan Millward's Going Postal when I'm in Oz for the return trip.

I think that pretty much covers it. Though I guess knickers would also be useful.

Objects of desire...

2011-11-21T20:51:00.007+01:00

When it comes to visits to the NEC, I feel like a chameleon. Obviously if you've met me this stretches credibility. How much blending can a 6 foot woman built for comfort with hair the colour of a London bus do?

It's more of an internal adaptation. The first year I went to the show I had a guest ticket courtesy of Craig Carey-Clinch. It said VIP on it in silver leaf and I enjoyed the insider status that came attached to a job working as head of campaigns for a Large Motoring Organisation. I spent the next few years getting closer to the industry, until one year I found myself with a staff pass, which came with an obligation to spend my time in the show having meetings with chief executives about sales data rather than having meetings with the rest of the lobby, motorcycling friends and journalists in the bar. Though I did sneak off for the Wall of Death.

Paradoxically the nearer I got to the centre of things the more of an outsider I felt. So I walked away from that job, and 10 months later out of work all together. Oops.

Last year I went to the show in a new disguise - freelance journalist. I'm still not sure it's a role I'm playing terribly well. I feel like there's a Haynes manual for it that everyone else in the motorcycle media has got, and all I've got is a smudgy pdf of the page that says "reassembly is the reverse of disassembly."

But it must be true because editors ask me to write for them. Sometimes they even ask me twice.

This year was my second visit on a press pass. I've come full circle and am about to start again. Instead of discussing data with Chief Executives and Chairman I talked travel with Paddy Tyson and Sam Manicom. I looked at off-road bikes and I asked lots and lots of questions. KTM were happy to let me stand inexpertly on the pegs of the new Freeride 350. The lovely people from Bumpy's walked me in a nervous figure of 8 on their Gas Gas, finishing their lunch ten minutes early to make it possible and offering me a warm welcome at their Yorkshire Trials Park. And I entered all the competitions offering trail riding holidays in warm places with the gusto that I used to enter the ones offering shiny new fast bikes.

What's it all in aid of? I'm going travelling. I'm starting with Australia, and when I get back I'm going to find out just how little money it's possible to spend on the tedious business of living so that I can build up enough funds to just keep rolling. It's not an original plan, but it's the one with my name on it.

I nearly bought Building the Ultimate Adventure Motorcycle: The Essential Guide to Preparing a Bike for the Journey of a Lifetime for three pages in it by Austin Vince. He's incredibly rude about guided tours and writes of the importance not only of making your own plans but also of creating your own diary, movie or website about what you did. His view is that we should be doers, not passive consumers. Something that it's been too easy for me to forget these last few years. Slightly ironically, it was the point about not being consumers that stopped my buying the book, because one of my great failing is the belief that reading about something is pretty much the same as actually doing it and that's a trap I'm trying to escape.

So this year for me, just as it was way back in the beginning, the NEC was all about possibilities. It's about becoming a new rider again, and about finding the allies who are going to help me reach the horizon. Probably rather slowly, and with a lot of stopping and putting my feet down, but, after all, as Ted Simon said, the interruptions are the journey.

Looking at bikes makes me smile

2011-11-12T10:47:00.002+01:00

I was feeling rather sorry for myself last night. I'm damaged again having nearly broken my neck trying to change the bed sheets. (Got my foot tangled up and fell into the pointy edge of the wardrobe. Normally sympathetic colleague couldn't stop laughing at this point of the story).

This morning is much better. The RBR has ended (boo) but it does mean that lots of people are posting their photos (yay!).

When I first started the Rally I waited in anxious anticipation for the Gallery to go up so that I could check whether I'd got the right landmarks. These days, between the Conkers arbitration weekend, and the speed with which Dave the D emails back with comments, that's less important. The photos are much more about happy memories of a year's riding.

Publish and be damned?

2011-11-07T12:28:00.005+01:00

I am unfashionable among my smarter friends for two reasons. I quite like Liz Jones, and I watch the X-Factor with enthusiasm.

The man I left London for judged me for reading Liz's columns. Every week he would pick up You, read the back page, making increasingly outraged harrumphs, and then regale me for a few hours about how shallow and self-obsessed all media types are.

I stand guilty as accused - I've kept this blog going for 5 years with an endless stream of tales about me and my life - but I take the view that if you don't like something, don't read it (or watch it, for the X Factor). And don't judge someone else because they do.

Liz takes stick for being shallow and for moaning about her single life. But being single is difficult, especially for women. Not because we're not emotionally complete without a man, but because there are some jobs which require either physical strength or 2 people. I have an armchair I would like the council to come and take away, but it's upstairs and I can't get it down on my own. My chain needs adjusting but I can't get the Africa Twin on its centre stand without help - apparently there's a knack, but I haven't got it yet. If I had a man around the house, or even a lodger, the job would be done in two shakes.

I usually recognise something in what she has written (though I promise I have never done this). This week I recognise the whole column, because we share a problem slightly more serious than not having anyone to hold the ladder while I try and clean the gutters:-

She's writing about her new partner:-

"How about a bath together," he says. "That would be something to put in your column. You could write about how I displace so much water because I'm so fat."
"Ha ha. I wouldn't do that."
"Yes you would. You did it to your husband."
This is true...I wrote about my husband because I didn't really care about him. My column, my opinion. was more important."

I don't write as much here as I used to. I have become worried about trampling on the people who make my life the incredible adventure it has become. The people I used to write about as strangers have become my friends. Is it better to write from the heart, publish and be damned, or to say nothing because words can bruise just as much as tarmac, even by accident?

Liz then worries that she's become addicted to misery, because "happiness isn't interesting." A post I actually wrote here.

And then they go out where she used to live in London. "I have a flash of my life if I'd stayed here: I could walk to Waitrose and the cinema. I'd be clean and happy. I start to sob." I've done the same, in the back seat of a black cab heading from the Embankment to Euston, because if I'd stayed in London I'd have been able to walk under the fairy lights strung between the trees outside the Royal Festival Hall and get a night bus home, instead of having to book expensive hotels and worry about missing the last train.

Graham says that everything happens for the best. I live in the countryside now. I shop at the Co-Op. I have time instead of money. This weekend I went to the Dirt Bike Show, next weekend I'm going to see friends, then it's the NEC show, and in less than 2 months I'm going to be in Australia. That doesn't sound too bad.

Oh, and the X Factor? I help run a jam night. We welcome anyone on stage who wants to give it a go. Some people are amazing, some are just enthusiastic. The X Factor is a silly, manipulative entertainment show but it takes a lot of courage - or, I suppose, iron-clad self-confidence - to get up on a stage and sing. So knock the judges, or Simon Cowell, but not the contestants. They're singing live every week and some people will watch and be encouraged to think "I'm better than that." And hopefully they'll find a lovely local jam night or music venue and get up on stage. Sharing music is a Good Thing. Unless it's you with your mobile phone on the back seat of the bus.

Sticks and stones may break my bones...

2011-11-03T14:17:00.002+01:00

... but sprox and chains excite me

Another first today - the Africa Twin had to go in for replacement chains and sprockets. The Triumph hasn't needed them yet, and Ruby had a shaft drive, so this is a new experience. After another excursion on the dinky Suzuki ("better than walking, but only just" said the man behind the counter, handing over the keys) I collected 2Moos and rode back to work.

I like new tyres. I love the three-dimensional fluidity they bring to my riding, for the brief period before I square them off again. The new chain brought fine throttle control and the re-introduction of engine braking to my arsenal. And we could accelerate without sounding like there was a spanner stuck in the spokes.

But the gear change didn't feel right. So when I was back in my parking space I knelt down for a look and found the chain was tighter than a mermaid's fish mitten. If I'd been sensible I'd have checked it while I was still outside the shop, but it didn't take long to nip back over and ask politely for someone to come and check the tension with me.

There was a slight rolling of eyes and a patient explanation of how to check a chain. You do this, and then you do this, and then yes, it's too tight. Which was a relief. Junior garage person was chastised and told to try again, and I've been given a compensatory tin of chain lube. Thanks due to Graham for showing me how to check!

"I'll tell you what freedom is to me: no fear."

2011-10-30T21:42:00.003+01:00

Although I've been single for about a year and a half I still sleep on "my side" of the bed. At the moment, in the space where an other half used to be, I have two workshop manuals, the crossword, and Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon. Travel, and the knowledge to make it possible.

There are lots of things to miss about my previous life. There's the benefits pointed out in When Harry Met Sally: "You guys were a couple. You had someone to go places with. You had a date on national holidays." There's massive comfort in knowing that there is one person out of everyone in the world whose job it is to be concerned with my wellbeing. To make me a cup of tea when I get home, and to bring me magazines and chocolates when I feel ill. But that's lazy too. The person whose main responsibility it is to look out for my welfare ought to be me. Anything else should be a bonus. (Though I must add at this point that I am blessed in my amazing friends who do look out for me, all the time.)

There are benefits in being single too.

Last week we had the final RBR event of the season - the Conkers camping weekend and barbecue. Jim brings his caravan, his superior coffee machine and his large awning. Viv cooks up a storm, and Ian and Carol make bacon butties for breakfast. Graham checks photos so those seeking a 100% allrounder have a chance to remedy any mistakes. It's a fantastic weekend. And this year was the first year I was able to enjoy it fully. The first year I was with someone who made it clear that he was desperate to leave from the moment we pitched the tent. Last year I was having immense job stress and had to leave early in Sunday morning to meet a deadline. This year I had no worries and a wonderful time.

One of the new faces was discussing whether he'd go for a 100% all rounder again next year. The problems of making time for family events, other hobbies, and keeping a non-riding partner happy argued against. And these are the things that I no longer have to worry about. Love might mean never having to say you're sorry, but being single means I never have to say "do you mind if..."

If I want to commit to riding to Shetland for the Simmer Dim I can do it. If it seems sensible to me to ride for 10 days in Scotland on the Old Farts Tour, and I have enough annual leave in the bank, I can take those days without having to negotiate. And if I want to spend a large amount of wedge flying to Australia for Christmas, hiring a bike and exploring a new continent, that's just peachy.

Some people will think this sounds terribly lonely. And on a bad day it is. But on a good day the only thing that stands between me living the life I want, the way I want to, is whether I'm brave enough to get out there.

And that's worth a little loneliness.

Meet the Meat...

2011-10-10T20:43:00.005+02:00

For a short while tonight I thought somebody was having an October cook-out, for the smell of roast beef hung temptingly in the air. After a few miles I realised it was following me home. Yesterday my lid was hanging in the kitchen for the three hours that a particularly fine slice of cow was roasting in the oven and it seems to have taken the experience to heart. It's an improvement on the usual ambience of slightly mouldy rainwater, though it did make me head straight for the fridge when I got in.

Though, in all honesty, I would probably have done that anyway. I live in a happy rose-tinted world where all you need to do to prosper is work hard at the thing you're good at, not deal with schoolboy games from someone old and well-paid enough to know better. I can work hard, it's the bullshit that kills me.

And makes me fat. Proponents of slimness like to say "Nothing tastes as good as thin feels." I think that's because they've never had yesterday's roast potatoes sitting in the fridge waiting for a quick zap in the microwave and a topping of extra-mature cheddar, stuck under the grill until brown and bubbling.

My excuse is that it's not just about the joy of carbs. It's also second helping of the joy of having a great Sunday. Two of my lovely friends have three small boys, for whom I'm a kind of mad Auntie with a house full of odd toys. Yes, that's a keyboard that you have to pedal. Yes, that's a record player. A bit like CDs but bigger. Yes, that's a shark on a stick. And very bravely they come round every few months and test my Sunday dinner skills before running round the park. My roasties were fine, my yorkies were more like little biscuits, but the lump of cow was a triumph, because I took the advice of the blessed Delia who said "start with a good cut of meat."

Lurking in an industrial estate on the edge of my village is an excellent butcher. I told him that I needed enough roast for three small boys and three big grown-ups, he chose me a bit and put it on the scales. I asked if I needed to take the string off before I put it in the oven. He sized me up and said "You're not very good at cooking, are you, love?"

I like to think it's more that I'm out of practice.

Anyway, I had a point when I started this post. It turns out today is World Mental Health day. My mental health was sorely tested today but there are two infallible cures that I can recommend to everyone.

Food for friends, and riding motorcycles. And if your lid spends a week smelling of beef, well, that's just a happy reminder.

PS: This weekend was also my 2nd Plinthiversary. Which is why there's a photo of Rufus on the plinth up there instead of something more relevant.

Spread a little happiness as you go by...

2011-09-27T18:46:00.003+02:00

A long time ago I drove a 2CV whose previous owner had got up one day, looked at a small comedy French car and decided that its image would be greatly enhanced by the addition of some Winnie the Pooh cartoons. It was cheap and not too rusty, so I bought it, and then I found out that it's really quite life-enhancing to be the cause of small children breaking out in smiles and cheerful waves. (One of my gifts is that through a form of remote mind control I can make babies cry just by looking at them). It was a helpful antidote to the gruff contempt which it attracted from the maintenance guys at work.

This morning I was riding Two Moos along the road which is a shortcut to our village primary and got waved at by at by several Very Small People. I think the fact that he has shiny pink glitter stripes helps. It's lovely to be popular!

"She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain the mastery of life"

2011-09-23T07:40:00.004+02:00

The moon is bouncing off the glitterball that lives in my window and has covered the walls with spots of soft silver light. For some reason I have started falling asleep at about 9.30 in the evening but the benefit is that I wake up early enough to see things like this.

Actually, I think the reason I am in bed so early is that I have started cycling to work. I could blame the excessive cost of petrol but in fact it is the excessive amount of lard that I am carrying that has made it necessary. I am going abroad for Christmas and I don't want to be a fat pasty English bird sweating my way round Australia. As I am rubbish at denying myself food the only way forward is to cycle 60 miles a week. It sounds like a daunting number but it only takes an hour each way. I'm used to taking an hour to get to work, anything less and I'm never quite sure what to do with myself. It's very flat - there's only one small hill on the way home, which I have to do battle with in high gear because if I change down the chain gets stuck. And only about 200 yards of that has to be done on rural roads with a national speed limit.

I find it a very peaceful way to travel, particularly when compared with the challenge of filtering five miles of standing traffic. It's good for my head, too - because the middle part of my route is traffic-free I can safely let my mind wander without the worry of stuffing myself up the back of a Skoda.

The drawback with this, of course, is that I now have a crisis of identity. I asked the Cambridge Cycle Campaign for advice on the etiquette of passing on cycle paths - do we behave like little cars and hug the left? What do I do when someone faster comes up behind me and dings for attention? They were very kind and helpful and naturally invited me to join their group, which lobbies for better cycling facilities in the town. And right there is where we have a problem. I'm all for Advanced Stop Lines - as long as I can put Two Moos behind one after we've filtered to the front. Most cyclists (well, most of the ones who post on The Guardian's Bike Blog) don't like to share. They think of motorcycles as two-wheeled cars. I think of bicycles as motorbikes without an engine. I can't lobby against myself. I might have become my own power lump but I'm still a biker.

The other reason I need to be more svelte when I get Down Under is that I'm going to be travelling on a 110cc twist-and-go. I had such a laugh on the 125 that Cambridge Motorcycles lent me that I'm going to spurn a rental GS in favour of buying a postie bike to explore Western Australia. The less of me it has to carry the more room I'll have available for creature comforts.

Tibbie Sheil's Inn

2011-09-10T21:34:00.000+02:00

I am on my way home from the Old Fart Tour, via a 40th Birthday party in Boot. The YHA page describes Boot as "at the foot of the Hardknott Pass." This is a bit of a lie as it is actually at the end of the pass if I want to arrive there from the east. So my riding of lairy roads would appear not to be over yet. It is raining a lot, but I am in a very nice conservatory looking out at it, for a change. Four bikers arrived in the night and are camping by the Loch. They look rather damp. I think the B&B rate is looking like an excellent deal to them this morning....

I had thought about visiting the monks in Eskdalemuir but it is so wet I will flee straight to the Lake District via Moffatt.

The sky over Skye

2011-09-08T08:44:00.000+02:00

Proof that the flood is of biblical proportions...

2011-09-07T18:28:00.000+02:00

double rainbow over Skye.

In search of a bacon roll...

2011-09-05T11:27:00.000+02:00

The Househill farm shop, Nairn.

This much blue will do...

2011-09-03T14:33:00.000+02:00

Heading for Glen Prosen. Last time I was here a deer nearly took me out.

snack break, Galloway

2011-09-02T14:15:00.000+02:00

One of Old Farts is missing

2011-09-01T19:21:00.000+02:00

This is the view from New Lanark Youth Hostel, which is lovely, but Graham has a room to himself as Paul was taken ill before we left Birmingham and has had to go home. The hills are still beautiful and we are hoping he feels well enough soon to catch us up.

Back in the Saddle Again.

2011-08-31T13:34:00.003+02:00

Today is the opposite of Lupercalian Goat Sacrifice Day. It is the first day that there's been a tart bite of cold at the edge of the morning, and a hint of woodsmoke hazing the view of the horizon.

I enjoy spring because I like to be warm, but I love autumn because on days like today it isn't just woodsmoke in the air, it's change. Everything is possible on mornings like this one.

Ruby has gone, and the Metal Mules and I are now mounted on Two Moos Lautrec. I am en route to work but after work I am heading to Scotland to ride the 1,000 miles necessary for a Touring Award. One day soon, when I am bored of the bourgeois requirements of owning capital and making progress in the world, I will ride off and not come back. You'll know when this happens because I'll post a photo with a camel in it.

I know this girl's got loads of scars....

2011-08-20T20:45:00.003+02:00

I have an offer for Ruby so the last few days have been about taking off all the bits that might be useful on the Africa Twin and restoring her to stock.

I thought it was going to be a difficult process - there's a reason I've only got round to selling her now, at the end of the riding season, not at the beginning, when I might have got a better price.

More than half a lifetime ago my mum died. (It may be crass to compare selling a motorcycle to a bereavement. If you think you might think this, I recommend you go and check out Nikos's latest update instead while I blunder on with this simile.) I was left with an abiding sense of being cheated of my Hollywood ending. In sentimental films, the dying parent gets to offer words of wisdom and encouragement that their family get to carry with them when they're gone, as consolation and as a guide to their future selves. In real life, or in my real life at least, when she was compos mentis enough to offer parting words, she wasn't ready to admit she was departing, and once she was departing, she was whacked out of her head on morphine and couldn't tell the difference between me and a lamp post. Shuffling off the mortal coil is a long drawn out process and it's difficult to pinpoint the moment the soul goes and the body is left breathing on its own for just a little longer.

Ruby stopped being Ruby when her Metal Mule rack came off. I put the stock BMW handgrabs back on, and she turned into just another GS, and I can let just another GS go without too much pain.

She's just another GS with scars, though - no amount of polishing can take the scrapes off the screen where she tried to headbutt Julian's caravan, or the scuff in the left-hand cylinder head where we bounced off the A1; and though I've taken the RNLI sticker from the 2010 Lands End-John O'Groats off the screen, I've left the Thundersprint scrutineering stickers on her beak, just to leave a little bit of glamour on her.

In a perfect world I'd keep her, but she's an expensive girl. I wish the bike that used to be Ruby some more great adventures. We had more than our share.

alea iacta est

2011-08-14T11:07:00.004+02:00

Decisions are not my strong point. I blame my genes - if Scots were supposed to be good at making choices, would we have invented a word like swithering?

I have three bikes. One of them has to go. If I had more money, or more mechanical experience, I could afford to keep all of them. But I don't. Also come the winter the car will need to go in the garage too, which with current population numbers would require one bike to come and live in the sitting room. I'm not averse to that idea, but I can't see how to achieve it without knocking a wall down.

So I have hummed, and hawed, and swithered, and nearly sold the Africa Twin to a man who wants to take it to Morocco. But I have been looking at pictures of all the awesome back roads in Australia, which I would like to ride before I get too much older, and the hard fact of life is that if Ruby falls over I can't pick her up. And she costs 100 quid an hour to service. And no-one says hello when I ride her.

So the game of eeny meeny miny mo is over. As proof of which I offer you this photo. It is the space where the sat nav used to be. No amount of polishing will make her as elegant as others on the market (rather like her owner) but she's got plenty of adventures left in her.

The good friends that we treasure

2011-08-07T22:56:00.002+02:00

It has been an old-school weekend. Because Ruby's battery is playing silly buggers and stranded me outside the chip shop I thought I'd better not take her to the inaugural Cheddar Mendip RBR Gathering. Also, and don't tell either of them, one of the two Gnarly Things in the garage has got to go. I can't afford to run three bikes any more, and one of my lingering doubts has been whether I can do all the things on the Africa Twin that I'm used to doing with Ruby. (Apart from waiting outside the chip shop for the man from ETA.)

This was also a test weekend for the tipi - which means I was probably the only camper this weekend hoping for rain - properly timed, in the hours of darkness, so as not to upset too many people - in order to find out whether rearranging my flaps as recommended by Tentipi UK will indeed prevent unwanted leaks. (The answer appears to be yes. Who'd have thought it?)

The only flaw in this plan is that the Africa Twin has neither a satnav mount nor a baglux harness for the attaching of mapcases to. The challenge this presents to me is amply demonstrated by the fact that it came as a surprise when I sat down on Thursday night to plan my route to find that the Mendips are not in fact near Minehead.

An anxious Thursday night editing the amount of kit I normally sling on the bike for a weekend, writing out instructions that, at a pinch, I could sellotape to the tank, and fretting about the lack of frame to strap the tipi to, was followed by a 6am wake-up call from next door's screaming child. One cup of coffee and a short amount of faffing with tie-downs later, I was off. Thanks to the miracle of modern communications - and the fact that I'd mentioned my planned route on twitter - I had a rendezvous with @Jezza1956 at noon in Monmouth to hit - and 5 landmarks later I made it just 45 minutes late, which I thought wasn't too shabby.

"Blimey, that's big" said a man on crutches as I parked up. Assuming he was referring to the Africa Twin and not the size of my arse, that made it two for two in terms of stops and conversations, which I think may have sealed Ruby's fate. No-one talks to me when I pull up to a kerb on her. The Triumph is a magnet for nostalgic old men, who like to tell me about their national service, while at the M6 services the Africa Twin had attracted the attention of a chauffeur who wanted to tell me about the Brough Superior he'd owned as a lad but sold on for 25 quid.

Cheddar is Jerry's stamping ground so we had a short play in the Wye Valley, a steak-and-ale pie lunch in Tintern, a rather hot and sweaty time battling traffic on the M5, and then he very kindly delivered me via Burrington Combe to the gate of the campsite and handed me into the care of Jacki and Mommybear.

Checking in has become my least favourite part of staying at a Camping and Caravan Club Camp Site. "It's just a small tent, isn't it?" said the site manager. No. It's a tipi, it's 10 foot in diameter, and I did tick the box that explained that on the web site. "Oh, we thought it was just 10 foot in one direction. Well, maybe you'll fit."

They took me past Jacki and Phil - and the two big empty sites opposite them - and to the bottom of the site and a small corner about 8 by 6 foot. "No chance," I said. "Oh. Oh, I'll see if there's anything I can do," said the manager, and vanished.

When you've been riding for 12 hours, you look forward to getting your tent up, having a shower and getting changed into civvies. You don't look forward to being left standing like a muppet on a campsite and then having to go and hunt down the people who are supposed to be sorting it out, to find that they've been distracted by selling loaves of bread and tubes of toothpaste to campers who've been given a site that does fit their tent.

I had a small strop in the shop and they gave me a great big pitch under a tree. So on Saturday afternoon I could lie in the tent for a disco nap and watch the leaves making patterns on the canvas. Which was nice. Opposite a family with three boys who wanted to play football with my bike as the goalpost. Which wasn't. Yes, I felt like a bitch when the keenest footballer picked up the ball with his saddest face on and went back to see his dad. But it wore off pretty quick when his dad expressed the view that no-one fucking cared about my fucking bike and people like me should leave his family the fuck alone. The thing I used to like about the Club was that they were strict about noise after 11pm and about ball games outside the play area. This site wasn't particularly bothered about either and I don't think I'll be rushing back.

But the weekend wasn't about the site, it was about the company. As well as Jezza@cix, who was one of the people who watched over my first wobbly U-turns, figures of 8 and camping weekends when my bike was a KH100, Viv's birthday barbecue brought together the usual suspects of the RBR social section, a scattering of grandchildren, Gordon's girlfriend and the RBR debut of Desperado, who packs up a tent even quicker than Paul Belcher.

On Saturday Jerry and Marysa met us at the Rose and Portcullis for carvery and skittles - analogue ten-pinbowling. With only nine pins, Andy picking up the skittles and the balls being sent back to the business end through a length of sloping drainpipe. Told you it was an old-school weekend!

Sunday morning was about packing up and saying goodbye. I am still a long way from coming to terms with going home from these fantastic events to my quiet house and my own company. I distracted myself with a ride over Salisbury Plain and past Silbury Hill, one of my favourite places on earth. Not that I've seen much of the rest of the earth yet to compare it to. So this is my new cunning plan. If I just keep going, then I don't have to worry about going home.

Downsizing

2011-07-29T11:41:00.003+02:00

I was tetchy this morning for no very good reason, though it may have been a combination of not enough sleep and making the mistake of reading this column in the Guardian defending cycling on the pavement. In the comments to which many cyclists declare their right to cycle on the pavement if it makes them feel safer without apparently having any awareness of the fact that it's very intimidating for pedestrians. When I was waiting for the repairman to come and jumpstart Ruby I was sitting on the pavement - for lack of anywhere else to wait - and cyclists shot past at speed only a few inches from my head.

I was also tetchy because I was rather lost - trying to take the Triumph back to Cambridge Motorcycles to have her leaks stopped. But now I'm in a much better mood. To save me from a long walk to work Phil lent me this very fine Suzuki 125. Looking like a frog on a matchbox I zipped up the Newmarket Road laughing my head off and feeling 26 all over again.

Motorcycles - making the world less tetchy, one rider at a time :)

The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.

2011-07-27T00:15:00.003+02:00

This morning I got the park-and-ride in to work. Because I was planning on going to a do in London, and the Triumph doesn't have anywhere safe to leave a helmet. (I didn't go in the end, which is interesting in its own right - perhaps I am leaving London behind at last.)

Now, it was all very trouble free, but it was also a rather stony-faced experience. Bus drivers in Cambridge don't talk, they just nod gnomically and take your money. The other four people on the bus sat in gloomy silence as we travelled a roundabout route to the centre of town. So I had to buy myself a Pain au Chocolate from Christine just to get a smile and a cheeful hello.

Yesterday I rode the Triumph to work. "New bike?" asked the man from the cycle shop, after watching me park up and give the bike a farewell pat. No, I said. Old bike. New tyre.

And we talked for a bit about the unbreakable bonds we have to our first bikes, the horror when they get nicked, and the sense of pride from being able to do work on them. And then I went to work.

On Saturday the Triumph and I went to Cambridge Motorcycles to get the new tyre put on - for I can do some simple things, but I can't do tyres yet. And when I was walking back to the workshop, having wandered way too far along the river, a car pulled up, and a bald man with tattoos said "are you heading to Cambridge Motorcycles, love? Hop in, I'll give you a lift. We work just opposite."

And I got into a car with two strange men. And yes, I did pause to wonder if that was the last the world would see of me.

But on a day when terrible things were happening in another country, sometimes it is necessary to do unwise things in order to prove that the world is, most of the time and for most of us, a good place full of good people. A stranger made a kind offer because he recognised me as a biker. I got a lift down the road, and picked up the bike in time to go to Barney's graduation party.

And this is why riding motorcycles will always be better than taking the bus. Because I ride a bike, people I don't know talk to me. And that makes my life more interesting. And for as long as life is interesting, it will be worth living.

"Om én mann kan vise så mye hat, tenk hvor mye kjærlighet vi alle kan vise sammen". Stine Renate Håheim

Still Crazy After All These Years

2011-07-23T19:22:00.003+02:00

I met my old lover
In the street last night
She seemed so glad to see me
I just smiled
And we talked about some old times
And I kicked her into gear...

Still crazy after all these years.

This is a Triumph with a decent battery and a back tyre that doesn't have any cracks in it, parked in the sunshine while I go off to a small graduation party. Posh frock on top, jeans and German army boots below. Too long on the sidestand has caused her to spring another leak, but it's nothing that can't be fixed.

I have too many motorcycles and they all make me happy, but this is the only one that makes me grin like a loon.

Catching them young

2011-07-21T22:13:00.003+02:00

It's a lovely evening in the Flatlands. Which is good, because I had to spend 40 minutes of it waiting for a man from ETA to come and jumpstart Ruby. We stopped for chips on the way home and when I tried to make a dashing exit with chips and a battered sausage in my top box I got nothing but clicks instead of her usual cheerful rumble, and the occasional flash of "EWS" on the screen. I was a bit worried that she'd suffered permanent collapse after her adventures with the Hyundai, but Peter at Lind listened down the phone and diagnosed a flat battery. Which was bang on.

I think the bike has more brain than I do. We've both had a blow to the head recently and 40 minutes with nothing to do but wait in the sun were actually very welcome.

But I hadn't planned to tell you about this. I was actually going to say that an even more interesting piece of two-wheel exotica was parked in the bike bay this morning. It's a Kickstart moped - loaned to young people so that they can get to work, or to college. What a brilliant thing to spend my taxes on :)

How to win friends and influence people

2011-07-20T22:00:00.005+02:00

My dad used to have a special gift. (He may still have it but it's a long time since we've been shopping together). He could walk into a shop that was so empty that the goods would be dusted to a shine and lined up not only by name, but also by size and colour, and within ten minutes the place would be rammed. (He also had the gift of arriving at the chip shop just as they ran out of chips, but that's a side issue).

I appear to have the same talent with motorcycle parking. When I started parking here Ruby had the entire bay to herself bar a 125cc Japanese cruiser that appeared to be entirely ornamental judging by the pile of blossoms drifting around the wheels.

Now I have to squeeze in between an array of exotica including a Goldwing and, today, a rather nice Ducati with French plates.

The box on the back is my tipi, which is going back to the importers so they can help me work out why it leaks in the rain. Some people might think this was over-ambitious to strap on the back of a bike, but I have taken lessons from Kevin Ash who once carried a fish tank on the back of his GS. He wasn't specific about whether it had fish in at the time.

Slippery when wet

2011-07-18T16:38:00.002+02:00

My head hurts. This should perhaps be unusual for a Monday morning but it doesn't hurt because I didn't take enough water with it, it hurts because on Saturday morning I slipped on a wet path and bounced my face off a railway sleeper. Given a choice of taking an eye out, losing some teeth or having a bruised cheekbone I do accept that the latter is the least worst option, but it made getting my helmet on this morning a rather unpleasant experience. Also I have a bruise the size of a palm on my left hip. Which made putting my foot down at the lights an experience which required lengthy and voluminous swearing to cope with.

So I am going back to the doctors at 5.30 to see if I've done anything serious to my face, my head or my neck. This makes it the second time in three years I've had to have my head officially examined. Two weeks ago I had to go to the doctors with a gardening wound.

Some people think motorcycling is a dangerous hobby.

Green eyed monster?

2011-07-06T18:49:00.005+02:00

I've found to my cost before that Ruby is a jealous girl.

Now it may be that the dropping of a media bomb at 9.52 this morning, which required me to drop everything else, slap the Emergency PR beacon onto my desktop and run around like a blue-arsed fly for the rest of the day, was a complete coincidence and nothing to do with the fact that I declared on Facebook last night that I intended to head up to Hayfield this evening by car (via a work conference in Manchester).

I'm sure Ruby had no interest at all in the fact that, since dealing with the issue pushed all the stuff I was going to do today back into the pile marked "tomorrow's problem," neatly requiring me to be in the office tomorrow not in Manchester, I will need to scorch up the country on Friday afternoon in order to reach The Sportsman in time for my dinner.

And lovely as my 2CV is, "scorch" is not in her vocabulary in the same way that it is in Ruby's.

We think we are evolved into independent thinking humans. What we actually are is a detachable opposeable thumb for Bavarian twin-cylinder manipulatrixes. When she learns to pay for her own petrol I'll be toast.....

Oldest story in the book....

2011-07-03T22:29:00.004+02:00

It's not a very original plot, I'm afraid. Girl-biker meets man-biker on holiday. Rides with him for a few days and starts to think, finally I have met a man I could ride round the world with, for he is friendly, and funny, and big, and capable, and rides at the back of the group to make sure she stays safe, and likes beer, and riding to interesting places, and knows how to tease her without hurting, a trick which none of her other men ever cracked. She offers her honour, he honours her offer, leaves on his next adventure and promises to come back soon. He changes his mind, which is his prerogative, and lets her know once by text, which is rescinded the next morning, and once by email, which has proved permanent. The sound of an inexperienced heart breaking echoes through the twittersphere.

For reasons which my counsellor used to enjoy earning a significant fee per month exploring, I have the body of a 40-year old but the emotional maturity of an 18 year old. Which seems to be a rather unfair way round. This rollercoaster is supposed to be ridden early in life by teenagers who fall for elegantly wasted lead singers, or the bad lad at the back of the class: who grow giddy with excitement when he smiles at them and weep buckets when he ignores them in the bus queue. To get Shakespearean for a moment, at my age the hey-day in the blood is supposed to be tame. And I wasn't ever the one with the hopeless crushes at school either. I was the loyal, slightly puzzled friend standing by with the tissues and with a part-share in the long-suffering dog who was happy to do laps around the estate where the object of my friend's affections lived, so we could casually pretend to be just passing if we bumped into him heading to the corner shop for some ciggies.

So this level of emotional suffering has been an unprecedented experience and it would be fair to say I have not coped well. In place of girls in grey polyester skirts, tumbledown socks and kitten heels forming a protective huddle round the sinks in the girls' loos, the job of providing moral support and passing the metaphorical tissues has been amply upheld by my twitter army, who have made me laugh and cry in equal measure with their messages and replies. And with the continuing but so far unsuccesful campaign to #findfruitybikerabikerchick.

Thanks from me to you all, and a special mention to @ibikerapp. His mission in life is to improve biker safety with an iPhone app featuring James Toseland and safe riding tips. I'm not sure how sending me DMs helping me to keep breathing fits in with this mission statement but I'm very glad it does.

My smartphone runs Symbian, while the app comes in Android or iPhone versions. So I can't tell you whether the app is any good. But I'm certain that the bloke that built it is.

When you saw this in your mirror you got out of the way...

2011-06-30T16:32:00.000+02:00

Getting in early

2011-06-28T09:13:00.000+02:00

I have time to cross one thing off my To-Do list each morning before I head out to work. This was today's.

You Give Me Faron Young

2011-06-26T21:02:00.006+02:00

At four o'clock this morning I was watching the sun rise over George White Superbikes in Swindon.

Strictly speaking I wasn't watching the sun rise because it was one of those pearl-cast misty mornings that doesn't come clear until about noon. But it was steadily getting lighter, the dawn chorus were giving it laldy and we were able to put the gas lamps out while arguing about whether there was a pop lyric for every hour of the day. (Andy and I had got 4am in the bag with Prefab Sprout, and 3am covered with the KLF, then Biker Paul trumped us both with "Rock Around The Clock," which covered all bases but left us in need of something new to talk about.)

These are the ways you pass the time while waiting for very road-weary bikers to roll up every twenty minutes or so to get their cards stamped, complain about the impossibility of finding the checkpoint, and ask how to get back out of town again.

For them, the absence of sunshine was probably a blessing. I've never done an all-nighter for the ACU English National Rally - when I was married it was always held at the same time as a Lib Dem training weekend in Peterborough, so I used to stop in the Great Northern Hotel for a few hours kip. When I was living in sin PB lived about half a mile from the Ely control point so I used to clock in there and go home for a few hours. Now I'm neither, and I still can't make it through the night - Chateau Belle Cher, Paul's camper van, was much comfier and warmer than the folding chair and I had a bit of a fading-from-view between midnight and 4am. But if I had been riding continuously since 2pm on the Saturday I think the last thing I would want was hot sun in my tired eyes and sweat creeping down my back. Not till I'd finished and was sitting down to a bacon sarnie and a mug of tea, at least.

I originally offered to help Paul out with the Control Point when I was working Sunday mornings and wouldn't have been able to do the full rally as a competitor. Now I'm back in the 9 to 5 and I could have signed up to do the miles, but I've done that a few times now and I've never done the stamping before. Sitting with tea, biscuits, pizza and good company while lots of lovely bikers come and talk to me - what's not to love?! (Though we were disappointed in the pizza, it came in a small Renault not on a step-thru)

Some riders said Thank You for being a control point, which was nice. Some took photos and said they were having a FB competition for the coolest checkpoint. I hope we won! Most just wanted to get their cards stamped and get on, though a few were grateful for a sit down and a cup of tea.

With almost perfect timing, the RBR contingent - Jim, Steve and Gordon - turned up within 5 minutes of each other - and in the only 5 minutes when I was on the phone. Fortunately Paul had brought enough biscuits to keep them distracted until I was able to come and say hello and to find out what happens when you accidentally hoover up a budgie.

Later in the evening some of Paul's friends turned up and one of them asked The Question....

"Where do I know you from? Have we met?"

Unfortunately there are only 2 answers to this (unless we actually have met, but that hardly ever happens.) The first is "you've seen me on the telly" and the other is "from the photo next to my column in The Road."* But I've yet to work out how to say either of these without sounding like an utter wanker. Suggestions on the back of a postcard please....

* Like the one above.

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti...

2011-06-21T13:30:00.005+02:00

This is a photo of my own special crime from the Cambridgeshire County Council parking enforcement website.
I'm very sorry. But it's nearly a motorcycle and it was very very wet, so there weren't very many bikers wanting the rest of the space. And I was late for the Senna movie. But I'm still very sorry and I'm glad I didn't meet any of the militant parking enforcers they used to write about on cix who used to take wheels off cars until they were reduced to the appropriate number for the parking space in question.

Ruby Slipper

2011-06-18T00:05:00.003+02:00

Well - I went to collect her this morning, and apart from the small matter of £2500 of cosmetic damage it appears that Ruby is going to be fine. Which is a big relief. The new GS is narrower, lighter, and more responsive, but my GS is comfortable and wide, has the bars in just the right place to fall under my hands and has a smooth bit where my shin rubs against one of the hoses. Though it seemed unlikely when she was new, we have come to fit each other. And hopefully will continue to do so for the next 36,000 miles.

Nip/Tuck

2011-06-16T22:16:00.005+02:00

I went to a poetry event last night. Now that I work in a bastion of intellectual elitism, I thought I'd better try and adopt some of the habits of my academic betters.

On a rather sultry evening, 5 student poets performed their compositions and Isabella Shaw was declared the winner by the extremely fabulous Benjamin Zephaniah.

Her winning poem, "Variations on the Westron Wind*," opens like this:

"The stones remember me
Ay, in the pale and deathless hour
Between the sun's setting forth and the sun's return
They recall
The shape of my long hand
The taste of my heart interred."

In the pale and deathless hour between the sun's setting forth this morning, and about 45 minutes later than intended on account of not being able to find the paper part of my driving licence, I went to Norwich and the lovely people at Lind lent me this younger, fitter, and healthier version of Ruby to use while they check her over for damage. She's taller, because after 36,000 miles Ruby's back end is saggier than Winifred Hathi's. The gearbox moves with a snick, not a kick. And she's had a bit of lipo around the front.

Younger, fitter - but better? Well, the thing is that after all those miles Ruby remembers not so much the shape of my long hand - though I seem to have worn the handgrips smooth - but the shape of my lard-arse. Which is not quite so poetic. But it does prove that Ruby is the most Important, the most Beautiful, the most Magical Saggy old GS in the whole wide world. And I hope that she's going to get a clean bill of health in the morning.

*The Westron Wind is a medieval fragment which is mostly about sex.

Only the good die young

2011-06-03T12:59:00.003+02:00

I was going to write an incredibly witty post about buying the wrong battery but that has been rendered profoundly inappopriate by today's news. In a very modern way I found out via Facebook that a former colleage and friend, Andrew Reeves, died suddenly this morning of a heart attack. He wasn't a biker, so I apologise for being off-topic. But he was incredibly kind. Mark Pack's tribute captures the quality of the man. I will miss him.

Vanity, thy name is woman

2011-05-31T13:45:00.002+02:00

At the Soham Bikes and Bands event I made the slightly alarming discovery that although the Metal Mule topbox did rather suit the Africa Twin, it wasn't actually locked to the frame. If I'd taken the traffic calming with any more gusto I suspect it would have bounced free and gone for an adventure all of its own.

The rack on Ruby has a little tongue for the locking lever to bite. The new rack doesn't. So I spent some of yesterday wondering if I had accidentally committed myself to spending another 500 quid so that Ruby and the Africa Twin can have a top box each.

I called Metal Mule this morning and the good news is that I'm not the only person out there with more than one adventure bike but not enough money for 2 sets of panniers. A new clamp is on its way to me in the post, for about 480 quid less than the cost of a topbox. And why am I feeling vain? Because when Mr Mule asked for my name for the parcel he remembered me from my visit with Ruby three years ago, and asked if I was still on the telly. I like to be memorable :)

Passenger looks a bit ruff!

2011-05-29T12:59:00.000+02:00

Norton outfit at Soham Bikes and Bands.

Conversations unlikely to be had by Kevin Ash #2

2011-05-27T16:23:00.003+02:00

"Hello, I need to arrange an insurance estimate, I bounced my BMW off the side of a car last Monday"

"Was it a motorcycle?"

If it wasn't a motorcycle, I wouldn't be calling BMW Motorrad Norwich, now, would I?!

Strong correlation between bikers and Rush fans...

2011-05-25T20:00:00.001+02:00

Did we all read Neal Peart's book?

I am being what I please

2011-05-24T23:08:00.002+02:00

I need to write the words that go with the pictures from the Air Ambulance ride, but it's not an easy one to start. I am at risk of dire sentimentalism! I have done the trip three times now. The first time was while I was trying to come to terms with choosing to leave my husband, an act for which I still feel massive guilt. Last year the relationship I turned my life upside down for was in its death throes, and as we ate our chips in a sandy car park on Anglesey it was clear that I would be going home to start living alone for the first time. This year I have a new job which is going well, a by-line in RiDE (the fee for which paid for most of the petrol), and a small diamond-bright sense of optimism that finally, maybe, it is going to be OK.

Optimism which didn't save me from the terminal embarassment of bursting into tears in front of Steve, this year's travelling Aussie, on the last day, just like a 7 - year old who doesn't want to go home from the seaside. With all its miles, frustrations, crashes, oil panics, broken nights and downpours, it is still an amazing experience and one which I wish could go on for ever.

"And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth."

At the Great North Air Ambulance

2011-05-20T23:39:00.000+02:00

So cold i could cry....

Time to turn

2011-05-19T08:48:00.000+02:00

Leaving Dingwall always makes me sad. From here each day takes me nearer the real world. Life on these tours is simple. Get up, pack, ride 300 miles or so with an Air Ambulance visit and a few RBR LMs en route, get rained on, make camp, have shower, eat, sleep. Repeat. Only twice more now.

Dunnett Head, most northerly part of Britain

2011-05-17T15:06:00.000+02:00

He's called Boffin for a reason....

2011-05-17T09:31:00.000+02:00

Andy's bike has a socket for 3-pin plugs.

Tuesday morning, 7am

2011-05-17T08:13:00.000+02:00

It's a bit chilly in Dingwall so I've taken my coffee back to bed for a few more minutes toastiness. A successful detour to Barter Books (which preceded a slightly less successful detour into the side of a small car, I am fine, Ruby seems fine, the car has a BMW-shaped dent in the side) means I have the luxury of reading a book! (stuart Maconie's Cider with Roadies, for those who prefer detail).

Hoots Mon!

2011-05-16T14:22:00.001+02:00

...or is that Hoots, Monday?

I am ready :) Ian is not ready...

2011-05-15T16:22:00.000+02:00

Cornwall Air Ambulance

2011-05-14T14:14:00.000+02:00

Ian's security crocs

2011-05-14T13:22:00.000+02:00

At Lands End....

2011-05-14T10:40:00.000+02:00

Gnarly!

2011-05-13T11:06:00.000+02:00

10 minutes to Cavalcade

2011-05-08T12:54:00.000+02:00

Thundersprint 2011

2011-05-08T07:33:00.000+02:00

It's enough to put you off camping...in a schoolboy error I left my earplugs on the bike & thus was kept awake first by the sound of the rain falling and then by the howling gale. Rain inside the tent again - I feel like I must be doing something wrong. There was another tentipi on the football pitch looking much more stable than mine...

Enjoy The Silence

2011-05-07T10:30:00.004+02:00

Stephen Moffat has taken some fire recently for making Dr Who too scary for modern kids.

For anyone worried about The Silence, I offer empirical proof that they are made up. If human evoution had really been guided by alien intelligence I can't believe that BMW would have developed a headlamp assembly that requires two thumbs on the same hand to change a bulb.

Still, it's a lot easier wrestling with the bastard clip in my garage than outside an RNLI station in the North East under the watchful gaze of the RBR Long Distance Touring Section....

LAMPF! FUEL!! ACTION!!!

2011-05-03T23:36:00.007+02:00

Ruby has got a little teutonic of late and is now complaining vehemently that not only is she starving for fuel (not true, it's just the fuel gauge that's failed for the second time) but she's also gone blind in one eye. Changing bulbs requires the hands of a 7 year old and the patience of a saint, neither of which I possess right now so I will just have to concentrate on getting home before dark.

I am enjoying riding every day, it's not very far to work but there is a point where, after riding a dark and narrow lane between thatched cottages we burst out onto an open, rising road beside a field full of yellow flowers and under a clear blue sky. At which point I usually cackle like the loon that I am at the sheer bloody joy of it.

Also in the joy column, this morning we managed a perfect sweepy overtake - just a little one, but it was so poised and timed that even I was pleased with it.

And this evening we went to the barbecue bike night at Ultimate Bike Gear in Papworth. I am feeling a bit lonely at the moment (I think it was watching the Royal Wedding that did it!) so I am resolved to go out and about a bit more, for company and fun isn't going to find me if I hide at home. I sound very brave saying this now, but the truth is I nearly wimped out of going, it is daunting heading out to these things and not knowing whether you'll know anyone. Big thanks to Lloyd for not letting me be a wuss. Somewhere in my house there is a badge that says, "Talk to me, I don't know anyone here" - I used it a lot in my first few weeks at university, and maybe I should bring it out of retirement. In the meantime, if you're at a bike meet and you see a tall woman with purple hair looking a bit nervous please come and say hello to me.

Meanwhile this weekend I'm looking forward to being at the Thundersprint with Nikos and Mrs Nikos, and the prospect of a guest appearance from Clarky! Telegraph bloggers reunited :)

And next weekend I shall be at Lands End for the start of the Round Britain Rally AA Ride. The AA stands for Air Ambulance, not our anticipated road rescue service of choice. More info here.

PS The picture does not show Ruby. It reminds me that there was once a time I could manage a 10 day trip with one tankbag...

Oil on tracK?

2011-04-27T12:47:00.001+02:00

That would seem to be an unusual situation for an August Seat of Learning...

Here comes the sun

2011-04-26T23:06:00.004+02:00

Well - I've just waved goodbye to the Vauxhall. My sales pitch started well when the prospective buyer checked the oil level and the whole dipstick tube came off in his hand. Then he started trying to make me feel guilty for the fact he'd come from Bedford to look at it and it was a bit shit. Hand on heart, it's in the column in Parker's Used Car Prices marked "poor" and I got a reasonable return for it on that basis. It shames me that I let it get into a bad way. Easy to blame someone else - I spent a few years with someone who seemed to feel guilty at being in a financial position to afford nice things, and who assuaged that guilt by letting the nice things go rusty, or get broken, or lost, or have some of their parts disappear. And who felt it very important that I adopted the same mindset. Which is, of course, utter bollocks. If we are lucky enough to have quality kit, then the best way to repay the universe is to look after that kit. And that's nothing to be ashamed of. This reminder has come too late for the Vauxhall, and in all honesty probably too late for Ruby too. The car doesn't have many happy memories and I wish it well in its new life. And I thank it for being a sacrificial lamb. With great vehicles comes great responsibility and I will try and do better by the 2CV.

Easter Egg run

2011-04-24T12:31:00.001+02:00

Polar Bear Sue has invited me on the local Easter Egg run...I have a bunny tail and ears for my lid :)

Every Day is a Good Day

2011-04-19T08:23:00.003+02:00

I've been camping on the south coast with Biker Paul...him on the Rocker's Revenge (Kawasaki W650), me on Ruby as her final fling before I have to sell her to pay the taxman. We looked like a magazine feature on Biking Through The Ages. Or possibly like a mix and match TV chef tribute act - The Not Very Hairy Biker and One Not Very Fat Lady.

Now, the problem I face is that it was a fantastic weekend of sun, and ice cream, and sitting on the beach watching the moon on the waves and listening to the breakers roll in, and drinking good beer and having a laugh with some locals in the pub who tried to teach me to juggle - oand what's interesting about that?! I've built a blog on misfortune and sarcasm, and here I am skipping through the metaphorical internet grinning like a loon and saying Hello Flowers, Hello Trees.

It also helps that I get to ride to work every day through some of the best of an English spring....at the moment when I leave the house the light is that fabulous slightly luminous morning pearl that just makes me want to stick my passport in my pocket and ride for ever. When I am an old woman that's what I'm going to do, but for now, for once, Every Day is a Good Day.

PS - in case you are wondering, the picture is of the inside of one of this year's RBR Landmarks, thus neatly circumventing the ban on publication before 31 Oct.

"Jesus, at least I tried"

2011-04-14T21:27:00.003+02:00

The arrival of Hortense the very shiny 2CV has prompted a round of washing of the bikes - can't have them feeling shown up! And to make life even easier, this morning I discovered a tap hiding behind the garage door so, while yesterday was a careful round of the Africa Twin with a magic fly-removing cloth, today I got to spray Ruby liberally with something pink and foamy and hose her down afterwards. Blimey, she scrubs up well.

But that wasn't what I came here to talk about.

While I was polishing flies off the Africa Twin, I had the radio on. From 7 till 8 Radio 2 do niche music shows - Monday is the blues, and Tuesday is folk. And I really liked the words to this - Ramblin Rover. So I offer them here for your delight. It's probably a really famous song but I've never heard it before. I haven't roamed through all the nations yet, but I've roamed through most of Britain and my good friends are all treasure. Here's to you!

"I've roamed through all the nations
Taken delight in all creation,
And I've tried a wee sensation
Where the company, did prove kind.
And when parting was no pleasure,
I've drunk another measure
To the good friends that were treasure
For they always are in our minds.

If you're bent with arth-i-ritis,
Your bowels have got colitis,
You're gallopin' with bollockitis
And you're thinking it's time you died,
If you've been a man of action,
Though you're lying there in traction,
You will get some satisfaction
Thinking, "Jesus, at least I tried."

What I did on my holidays...

2011-04-13T22:01:00.003+02:00

This may not look like the most exciting screenshot you've ever seen - but it means that the album which I've been project-managing on behalf of Steve Lockwood has been successfully registered with Gracenote and so the wise and sensible people who buy it can upload it into their preferred listening software of choice and the titles will appear, as if by magic. Which I think is rather cool.

Next job - getting the album approved for the iTunes store...

MOT time...

2011-04-08T09:50:00.000+02:00

Anxious parent sitting here waiting for the result...

This is what Spring looks like

2011-04-08T00:09:00.002+02:00

I am getting old and I seem to feel the changing of the seasons more keenly than I used to, presumably on the grounds that I have an ever-decreasing number of them left. Though it's equally possible that the reason I am particularly relieved at the arrival of spring this year because it means my gas bill will go down.

There's a town in the USA where spring is marked by the arrival of between 10 000 and 25 000 tundra swans, stopping for a rest on their spring migration. For me spring is marked by the arrival of Lupercalian Goat Sacrifice Day, closely followed by the RBR landmark list, the A.R.S.E, the paperwork for the Thundersprint, and then by getting up at 6.00am and making like an air hostess in my fetching orange Hopp Rider Training vest. Or Michael Palin in The Life of Brian. "Confident on the right....less confident on the left....don't know? How about the middle..oh, you were just kidding. Yes, brick-slow is also good on the left."

Spring at Cadwell Park is lovely. The sunlight catches in the trees and the bunny rabbits frolic on the meadows. Evolution teaches them how not to get smacked by errant Porsches, while modern EU noise regulations mean that the exhaust notes of the LRSP partipipants barey disturbs them. Apart from the Viper can on the VFR ;)

Here's a few pics.

This is why we die.

2011-03-18T08:48:00.005+01:00

I should stop reading The Guardian becuase it turns me into a ranting stereotype.

Chris Evans mentioned this story yesterday on his breakfast show and said "maybe she shouldn't drive." Driving is a skill, it requires hand-eye co-ordination and a high level of mental processing and decision taking. Yet we persist in assuming that everyone can learn this skill. While agreeing that permiership football should be left to the experts.

Jessica Reed's take for The Guardian? Poor woman, give her a bye and let her on the road anyway.

Even though she doesn't know the rules of the road or how to spot a hazard.

ACEM, the European manufacturer's association, analysed accidents in depth for the MAIDS study and found the following:-

"The cause of the majority of PTW accidents collected in this study was found to be human error. The most frequent human error was a failure to see the PTW within the traffic environment, due to lack of driver attention, temporary view obstructions or the low conspicuity of the PTW."

They hit us becuase they don't see us. I think the hazard perception test - though not perfect - at least tries to educate drivers about the idea that traffic is a dynamic environment that they need to pay attention to.

I would like to offer kudos to my dad in this post. He's worried about his sight and he's going to get it checked to see if he needs to hand in his licence. Another member of my family - who is not getting kudos today - suggested that he was being overzealous in observing the law. I think he's being incredibly brave. The other reason we die - or lose the use of parts of our body - is that people who can't see well enough to drive any more persist in taking to the roads because they aren't willing to balance their need for mobility against the needs of other people not to be hit by half a ton of car driven by somebody who is technically blind. Respect to a man who has driven for over 50 years but is prepared to walk away from it to keep other people safe.

OK. Back to being cheerful.

Skating away, on the thin ice of a new day

2011-03-16T15:50:00.003+01:00

Two excellent days this week, and it’s not even Friday yet! I am shortly to rejoin the ranks of the gainfully employed (subject to passing some security checks, which makes me nervous even though I have no reason to be. A bit like walking past coppers carrying guns in Oxford Street) so am trying to make the most of my last few days of leisure.

On Tuesday the chance came up to go to the High Court (even typing that makes me nervous!) to see the second day of the appeal brought by No To Bike Parking Tax against Westminster City Council. I’m a latecomer to the campaign, because I worked for a body that didn’t want to get involved, though two of my absolutely favourite people in the lobby back it and that’s good enough for me. The veterans gathering on The Strand in cool hi-viz (a sentence you won’t normally see me type) would have had every right to tell me to sod off. But they didn’t, because they are bikers. They said, hello, and what do you ride, and we like your camera, and told me about freemasonry. And then they gave me stickers, and a seat in the court. I made myself useful by helping add up the length of bike parking provided in the borough, which helped the NTPBT QC point out that Westminster plan on the basis of 8 bikes in a bay, or 0.73m per bike. That’s about one of Ruby’s panniers.

People who think they know like to say that bikers aren’t political. I think Warren and the campaign have soundly disproved that. And they’ve done some incredibly creative stuff – I absolutely loved their V-for-Vendetta themed action.

Peaceful protest at its finest.

Today I have been polishing the Triumph. Those of you who know my previous position on bike cleaning may be wondering what has happened to the real Highwaylass and how to get her back from Guantanamo Bay. Orange really isn’t my colour. But the Triumph is up for its MOT and I’m thinking this year is going to be a bit of a retro riding year, for which shininess is a must. Am I sounding convincing? Actually I just don’t want Caz to tell me off again for having rusty spokes.

And while I was in the garage, cup of tea and headphones to hand, taking life one spoke at a time with rubber gloves and metal polish and wire wool, I thought that I wouldn’t have been able to do either of these things if I’d had to negotiate my time with someone else. There are downsides to being single. I have to make my own cups of tea, for starters. And I do miss having a warm body to fall asleep on on the sofa. But the quid pro quo is that if I fancy spending my evening on my knees in the garage eliminating that last speck of rust from my rims, rather than sitting in domestic bliss on that sofa, that’s absolutely fine. When I am an old woman I shall wear hi-viz, and a jacket that doesn’t go. And I shall spend my pension on petrol and summer gloves and Altberg boots, and say we’ve no money for jam.

No To Bike Parking Tax

2011-03-15T10:29:00.001+01:00

Ruby wanted to come to the Old Bailey to offer moral support.

Happy International Women's Day!

2011-03-09T17:30:00.002+01:00

Well, it’s a girl’s prerogative to be late, isn’t it!

In 2009/2010 8.8% of new bikers were female. I’d like to tell you what proportion of the current number of licence holders that represented but the DfT doesn’t seem to think that’s worth publishing – though they are quite happy to tell me that 15.3 million women hold a car licence. (If you can find the info in these tables Please let me know!)

I’m in a tetchy mood about data because I’ve just done my census form, which asked how many cars and vans I had available to my household but displayed no interest at all in my beautiful collection of superior mechanical motivation.

You’d have thought, as a minority, that bikers would be of interest to government types...and of course lady bikers are a minority of a minority, which brings me back to where I’d intended to start this post...

Being a woman on a big bike is usually guaranteed to make me stand out in any given crowd of bikers. And if I’m honest – which is never an unconditionally good idea – I like the notoriety. In the same way that a fan of an obscure group can’t quite reconcile the opposing desires for them to be a success without having to share them with others, I am conflicted about increasing the number of lady riders to the point where we become unremarkable. I might become a small fish in a big pond!

But then I give myself a slap and say that riding motorcycles is one of the best things in the world and everyone who thinks they might like it should try it at least once. One of the joys of my plunge into the world of twitter has been getting to know a whole posse of lady riders, both here and in the US, from the fast and fearsome @MissBusa and coffee’n’customs connoisseur @FieryPinkGirl to two of he UK’s finest, @xemmasulway and @warriorwoman *

We are the minority of the minority. Which is nearly the same as being the best of the best ;)

I leave you with words from Theresa Wallach, who crossed the Sahara by sidecar and Panther, with Florence Blenkiron to do the spannering and the French Foreign Legion for entertainment. Before World War II she took a degree in engineering from University College London and rode in trials and at Brooklands . Her book, Easy Motorcycle Riding, was published in 1970 by the same company that produced Graham Hill’s Guide to Racing Cars. In it she says:

“You are on your own. You are not protected by two tons of steel, rubber, foam padding and safety glass. Neither are you steering two tons of guided missile toward other cars, people and property. If you are prepared to accept the responsibility of your own actions, then motorcycling can be both safe and thrilling. Riding is an art as well as a craft and no amount of explanation can take the place of experience.”

Here’s to all the artistes and craftswomen out there on two wheels – all 8.8% of us!

*other twitter friends – I love you too but there wasn’t room to put everyone in by name...

If it's March, it must be MOT time....

2011-03-06T23:52:00.003+01:00

This year I am feeling a little retro. I think it is time to tackle the Round Britain Rally on my approaching-classic-status Triumph Adventurer, who will be 11 in May this year - do I only have two years left before it becomes a stroppy teenager, refusing to do what I ask and shrugging me off with a roll of the headlamps?

I am driven to this thought for two reasons. The first is that MOT time is here for the Triumph With No Name and I have a sinking feeling that we haven't actually turned a wheel since the last one, apart from up into and down out of Mel's van. Which is a terrible thing to do to a beautiful motorcycle.

The other reason is that Ruby is definitly having to go up for sale. If I get a half-decent price for her, I can pay half my tax bill. Needs must...

Moving the Bank Holiday?

2011-03-04T09:07:00.002+01:00

Moira Stewart, the woman with the best laugh in the world, says this morning that the Government is thinking of moving the May Bank Holiday - either to April, or to October when it will be called Trafalgar Day.

The unions say it's a slight on the workers and an excuse for unfettered celebration of capitalism. The government say it will boost tourism.

But there's a more important reason not to move my day off to October!

Like Goldilocks's porridge, a Bank Holiday in May is just right for riding. April is just a bit too soon and you can't count on the weather. And October? You must be joking. I do ride in October, but it needs careful preparation and a great deal of insulation.

And yes, that will be the content of my reply to the Government if they ever get round to publishing a consultation paper instead of just talking about it.

The full story, from the PA:

May Day bank holiday 'could move'
(UKPA) – Feb 5, 2011

The May Day bank holiday could be scrapped and replaced with a new holiday in the autumn, under plans being considered by the Government.

The possible move to an October bank holiday - potentially called UK Day or Trafalgar Day - follows calls from the tourism industry for a better spread of public holidays across the year.

But unions accused the Tories of attacking the celebration of international workers' day on May 1.

Government sources denied there was any political dimension to the proposal and stressed that it was subject to consultation. It will be contained in a forthcoming tourism strategy.

Tourism Minister John Penrose said: "Tourism businesses in the UK are brilliant at providing a quality experience for their customers all year round, but Government should play its part in helping them do so.

"An autumn bank holiday, possibly to be branded as a new UK Day, would not only help the industry but also give us all a new focus for celebrating the best of what this country does, and all the things that make us a world-class nation.

"But before we try to take this further, it's really important that everyone has a chance to consider it properly.

"If people decide they'd rather hang on to the May Day holiday, then so be it, but we ought to consider the options in a sensible way before the country reaches a collective decision."

Any change would not take place before 2013. There are additional bank holidays this year and next year to celebrate the royal wedding and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee respectively.

The Government is studying the move because the Easter holidays can fall very close to the May Day bank holiday, while an autumn holiday - during the half-term break - would help promote the tourism industry in the later part of the year.

Copyright © 2011 The Press Association. All rights reserved.