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Moto service at the Landmark London

Fri, 30 Nov 2018 20:44:25 +0200

SECRET LONDON: THE LANDMARK HOTEL, MOTORCYCLE REPAIRS AS IMPECCABLE AS THE HOTEL.

London’s five star Landmark Hotel is recognised worldwide for superlative service. Welding a broken motorcycle on the premises for a non-resident is probably not an everyday occurrence, but they dealt with it, with calm, aplomb and superb customer service.

Earlier, and a ride to the Bikeshed Café to meet with the remarkable Stephen Baker, motorcycle mechanical genius, who, and regrettably for the motorcycle community at least, is currently seconded to maintaining undersea trains.

Thirty minutes from the venue, in a bus lane on London’s permanently jammed Marylebone Road, Moto Gelato giggled and let the gear lever shear off. I knew it had sheared off because I saw the lever laying on the road shimmering and smiling in the sunshine.

My first thought was “Do I have any duct tape?” And my second was, “Wow, that bus was a bit close.”

A gentleman, from Italy as I subsequently learned, approached me whilst wearing a helmet. Observing the gear lever he said “Aaaaah, Moto Guzzi! I love thissa bike. Do you wanta push?” Grateful and over the roar of the passing buses I shouted “Yessa, please”

He pushed, I paddled astern, and soon we were off the road and blocking the vehicle ramp to the Landmark Hotel. Which was good, for parking in a bus lane on a red route can earn you three penalty points on your licence or get spread like jam on the front of big red passenger transport vehicle.

My helper climbed aboard his Piaggio and with a wave rode away into the traffic.

I sent a text to Stephen advising him that might not make lunch and he replied saying that he was sure he could fix it, and was on his way. Now I have a lot of experience with broken down Guzzis. Not fixing them, just looking at them in states of disrepair. With no disrespect to Steve, I thought I should try plan B.

Plan B was a call to the RAC emergency desk which is somewhere in the North of England. Through to a human and my phone started to fail. Not battery, just gremlins and the man in the North had never even heard of the Marylebone Road. I tried phonetics, and at one point tapping out morse code, which, as he evidently had no military service, could not understand either. After a very long fifteen minutes he found my location and said he would send a patrol which should arrive promptly in the next four hours.

Before departing, the gentleman from Verona had delved into Google and told me of his Guzzi dealer on Shepherd’s Bush Road, less than four miles hence, who would, in all probability have a gear lever in stock. When I called they said, “No problem, just get it over here.” This information re: replacement gear levers, was imparted to the RAC in the North who said “Yes, thank you, a patrol will arrive and advise.”

And Steve arrived instead, crossing traffic lanes with the cool of a long, long distance rider and glided to a halt beside me. “Show me” he said, and I waggled the broken lever. “Hmmm” he intoned and dropping to his knees used a door key to undo the rest of gear lever assembly.

Shall I repeat that? He used a door key to undo the rest of the gear lever assembly!

I looked to the Heavens, looking for God’s long finger, and then looked back at the two parts of the assembly.

Steve said, “If I had some metal glue I could probably fix this” Obviously, he is a level above duct tape. And then, because he is a hugely creative maintenance engineer and full of wondrous ideas he said “I wonder if the maintenance department in the Hotel has any welding equipment?”

I am dispatched to converse with Concierge of the Landmark Hotel. The Concierge, also from Italy and once owner of a Moto Guzzi, understood my plight immediately and handed me the phone pre-connected to maintenance. I explained, and the voice said “No problem”

Back to the bike and in moments two very large gentlemen arrived, both wearing pinstripe suits and ties. I thought, “Oh dear, this is the big heave-ho…”

Instead, the six-foot-three suit, who I later learned was Chief Engineer Keith Price, smiled and said: “How can we help?”

The two parts of the gear lever are held out for inspection. A quick examination and “Could you ride down the ramp to garage please Sir?”.

Which I did with Steve following, for this is London and motorcycles should not be left unguarded, even when in pieces.

Motorcycles parked and we embark on a subterranean journey through the nether regions of the hotel. Through airlocks, doors, down stairs to duck under air conditioning trunking, more doors, everywhere fresh, white, and immaculately clean, into busy corridors passing chefs and serving staff who hurry with intent and we step into offices with computers and focused people and thence into fifty square metres of workshop. With grinding wheels and lathes, and, laid out ready for use, a portable welding machine.

Somewhere above an RAC patrol is grinding steadfastly through the traffic to my rescue. But they’ve had three hours, and they’ve had their chance. And my phone doesn’t work to warn them of their redundancy.

Keith, still splendid in pinstripes, grinds off the chrome layer. That done, his colleague Dave, also in pinstripes but now wearing a heavy leather apron and welding helmet steps up to the mark. Keith, aware of Health, Safety and his responsibilities ushers us out and into his inner sanctum. The walls of his office display photographs of his Harley Davidson “someone stole the brake lever….” a chopped Triumph Triple and a beautifully refurbished Vespa finished in cream and red. He no longer rides, preferring to drive his 1954 two-tone Riley RME.

He says Stirling Moss saw the Vespa and asked Keith if he would refurbish his Triumph Tina scooter. Keith declined; saying he refurbishes stuff for fun not money. We chat about Stirling – I used to work on Stirling’s cars with a school friend whose father owned a motor racing garage. I mention to Keith that Stirling’s sister Pat, an Olympic equestrian rider, taught me to ride when I was spotty teenager. “Ahh” said Keith, “I know Pat” and asked me if I ever went to the Saddle Club with Stirling. “Yes” I cried “I won a prize there for dancing the Twist.” Which dance style dates us all.

Hooting with laughter, confirming how the small the world really is, all three of us return to the workshop where Dave is grinding and polishing the weld. “Like a Gucci jewel” said Steve and indeed he was right. The reassembled gear assembly, now repaired and stronger the original, gleamed and shone, polished to perfection. Back down the corridors, more ducking under the aircon ducting and we’re back in the Garage.

Steve puts the lever assembly back, this time using an Allen key rather than the door variety, in under three minutes. I am stunned. It takes me the same time to start the bike.

A call from Steve’s phone to cancel the RAC and we’re good to go.

Sincere handshakes with Keith and Dave; the latter a BMW 800 owner just like Steve’s, and we’re up the ramp and into the beginning of the sunset to wend our separate ways home.

I’ll return to Landmark before long to buy Steve a Cream Tea. And Keith and Dave if they care to join us above ground.

Marvellous day, marvellous people, marvellous hotel.

#notesfromtheroadvolumes #landmarklondon

THE PNEUMOTHORAX INTERLUDE

Wed, 30 May 2018 14:52:54 +0300

THE PNEUMOTHORAX INTERLUDE.

The woman in the green and cream room, obliquely called Cubicle 1, was small of stature and dressed in a grey sweat top and matching loose-fitting trousers. She wore no make-up; her dark red hair and pale skin differentiated her from the crowd as did the bruise on her cheek and the handcuffs and chain attached to her wrists.

I’m not sure that she was allowed outside of Cubicle 1, but she emerged quite often, walked around a little and by doing so introduced another woman as tall and as blonde as she was dark and small. This new woman wore a crisp white uniform shirt with navy blue epaulettes that matched the dark uniform trousers. Introduced I say, but somewhat reluctantly, as she was attached to the other end of the three-metre chain.

They went together, I presumed, to the toilet. When the tall uniformed blonde left Cubicle 1 on a different errand the chain was secured to a ring bolt in the wall and a uniformed man, outsourced I think, summoned to stand outside.

Holding my wife’s hand, I observed all this in grateful detail as I sat on a hard bolted-down chair trying to breathe. Grateful because I did not have to think about the pain in my chest and my inability to breathe.

Earlier I’d been to the Bike Shed Show at Tobacco Dock in London’s East End. With my two good friends Bill and Steve we’d ridden across the Capital, swooned over café racers and all things RoKKer and rode gently back home along the great River Thames, taking in our forgotten history. The only thing spoiling a perfect day was that the nagging pain in my upper left chest had moved to the centre and increased in velocity. It worried me a little that this might just be dead centre.

To bed then, in the early evening. And by the time my wife had finished watching Liverpool lose to some European team in Kiev and came up to bed, I had read almost of all of the internet, in both English and American.

The subject of my reading was, of course, chest pains, and how to overcome them. I added some sidebars to the search; smoking, lack of breath, tiredness. My conclusion was that I might be having or had just had severe indigestion, heartache (I am selling my Moto Guzzi Stelvio after all), a heart attack or any one of the other illnesses written in Latin.

So I said “Darling, I have a bit of a pain. Not sure I can ride the bike there; could you possibly drive me to the hospital? Please?” Which Darling did, with alacrity and some speed. Except we were slowed, in our town, by hordes of multicoloured fairies riding on bicycles. My wife opened her window and said in a slightly louder voice than usual, "Could you move over please, I am trying to rush my husband to hospital." The fairy on the bicycle next to us said in a flat and female London accent "Sorry love, we're with the Cancer." This was the first I'd heard on hierarchical illness.

But we made it to the hospital before I expired so let us return to our front row seat outside of Cubicle 1. My name is called; my wife stands to remind me who I am, and we progress to the first step of the journey. I am asked, by a black female doctor in clean dark green scrubs, for the first of twenty times over the next twenty-four hours, my name and date of birth. Later I was asked for my address, so I asked if they needed this to send the invoice. But, American friends, I knew that the invoice was a trick suggestion for my life was already in the hands of the NHS, which is free at the point of need, but strangely, not at the point of death. In Britain, we usually have to pay separately for death. Most cards, except American Express, are accepted.

Meantime I’ve answered my name and birthdate correctly and a needle is plunged in my arm, a litre or so of blood removed for testing before I’m walked to CXR (I understood later this means Chest X-Ray)

I found that if I put my chin over the top of the X-Ray machine I could just hang there resting, no need to stand on my feet. A few minutes of hanging and buzzing and I am back in the front row of Cubicle 1; but now there is a different cast.

With slack jaws we watched the new entertainment; a song and dance act comprising of a short, pallid, mean-faced youth who may, or may not yet, have vomited on his stained green jumper and was almost dancing and singing. The almost dancing was because two tall policemen, immaculate in starched white shirts and black trousers with a crease, had the youth suspended from his armpits between them; said youth could not quite touch the floor to dance. The almost singing was not quite a song, more a soliloquy on how he would run both the Police Service and the Government. Apparently, to be more efficient, both institutions require wild, and more, sexual congress.

But because I cannot breathe I am fast-tracked. My name is called, and I do not see the end of the show.

On a narrow silver painted bed with the sides folded down I am laying with a gentle brown faced doctor, born on the sub-Continent of India, who is feeling for a space between my ribs. I am pleased that my area is sectioned off with stiff blue curtains, for now there is a crowd summoned to watch me for their entertainment.

The soft-voiced Doctor has shown me the X-Ray; around my ribs is a sac full of air which is not so gently compressing my lungs to the point of collapse. I breathe in, the air leaks into the sac and increases the pressure. The cure is either I stop breathing altogether, or the pressure is released, and my lungs re-inflate. Earlier, when we discussed the problem and its outcome I asked if I might leave now and book in on Tuesday as it was my eldest daughter’s birthday party on Monday and I didn’t want to miss it. My wife leaned forward and told me this was a hospital, not a hotel, and the operation was needed now. No option but to accept.

There is no mention of how or why this may have happened. But I know, deep down, the root cause is smoking. I am aghast at the state my addictions have brought me to now. The Doctor has found a suitable gap in my ribs and asks the Surgeon if he would like the point of penetration painted in red or white. My suntan is that of a country farmer, restricted to my arms and face whilst the rest of my body is a dull and unattractive white. The engineer won the bet in my head and called for the red.

The crowd consists, from right to left, of my wife, seated, a male Agency Nurse from Africa wearing dark blue scrubs and sporting a jolly head of dreadlocks, two female Chinese Junior Doctors in smart casual clothes as befits their rank, and a male Chinese Surgeon in collar and tie, an Indian Registrar in a striped business shirt and crumpled grey trousers, an Indian Engineer/Surgeon who is now donning green surgical scrubs and the soft-spoken Doctor who laid with me earlier.

I have named the Surgeon in Green, the Engineer. I named him Engineer because of the pulling and pushing he first warned me of, and will soon implement.

Lights are up high, the Engineer is rubbing the left-hand side of my ribcage with a slimy lotion that has no added fragrance. It is good, I think, that my wife is present and that I am still wearing my 14oz RoKKer denim jeans. I asked if there would be a whistling sound when the lung cavity was pierced. He replied with the tug of a grin, “Are you medically cleared for this information?” I am asked my name and birthdate, I answer correctly and someone intones “Little prick” and before I can protest a needle is thrust into the rib cage and a cool sensation spreads.

We had discussed, the Registrar and I, about the use of medication earlier. I had said ‘anything’, except morphine, it’s derivatives or any other opiate, due to my addictive genes. So right now, as I had answered my name and birthdate correctly he was shooting up liquid paracetamol. After a five minute wait for the drugs to work, and, although neither the Surgeon nor I had moved, name and birthdate were requested again and answered, and the drilling commenced between my ribs with what I am sure was a corkscrew.

With such an audience observing my every reaction I could not faint from the pain. But then the Engineer said “I am going to insert the drain; there could be a little pulling and pushing” From the pain I knew he was inserting not just a drain, but a manhole cover too.

“Thank God I’m not pregnant” I cried. “I could never stand childbirth” And then the drugs kicked in and the pain dropped from agony to merely severe. Smiling I said, “Terrific, thank you everyone, you’ve been wonderful, may I go now?”

It was not to be. A giant blue see-thru bucket with a sealed lid, such as you might buy children at the seaside, had been attached to the drain. Water fills the bottom tenth, to trap and monitor the air which will hopefully escape.

“Deep breath” the team shouted. “Cough”.

Pain upswung to higher levels and applause was dimly heard. Air had been seen bubbling down the tube into the bucket. This, evidently, was a good thing.

Bandages are packed and lashed around my wound, which, I noted with pride, was more or less the same position that Christ was impaled by the Centurion. More minutes passed, the crowd disperses seeking newer entertainment and my wife and I hold hands in the darkened emergency room.

With a suddenness of a good theatre all the lights come on at once and new actor enters, pushing a large machine that closely resembles a Praying Mantis. There is nothing good about a Praying Mantis that I know of, but the new man introduces himself as Kevin, the mobile X-Ray man. Kevin is Irish from Ireland, not to be confused with the Six Counties of the North who, even now, are holding up the Brexit plans. Kevin doesn’t care about Brexit. He’s Irish, and staying in.

The Mantis is manoeuvred for a close-up, Kevin and my wife disappear into the dark recesses of the room and several clicks, bangs, and flashes take place. Kevin is back, the Mantis is away to eat someone else and my wife seeks out my hand once more.

We sit quietly for twenty minutes and a Doctor appears, he of the soft-spoken voice. He has looked at the X-Ray, air is being nicely expelled into my bucket and all is apparently going well. But I will have to stay here in the hospital for a couple of days to observe me more.

He leaves and a new nurse plus helper arrive with a much larger bed on wheels. They line both beds up to be parallel, adjust the heights and slide me across to newer comfort. It must be one of those super cool mattresses they advertise – ‘free for 100 days and we’ll take it away if you don’t want to pay’.

Its 4.30 a.m. and my loving wife departs for some restless sleep. As she drives home her car's engine management light switches itself on although it’s been repaired in the last two weeks. She ignores it, gets home and calls the vehicular AA later that morning for assistance. She must wait, misses Mass, but feels it is OK because of the pressing urgency of a husband still laying in the Major Accident Ward who won’t do as he is told and is probably still wearing his RoKKer Jeans. (He was)

Vehicular AA complain because they have advised and treated the engine management light previously. Wife ignores the whining and, wearing a smile that could be termed as stiff, still tips the mechanic, packs pyjamas for me and is off to the Hospital.

Where I lay in bed, in jeans, in pain. A nurse is summoned, pain discussed and once my name and address are given correctly I am served with painkillers – now uprated to codeine, which, I know, is associated with fringe opiates – but I hurt. The need to urinate is greater than the pain and I am brought a tube-like receptacle of recycled cardboard. I am not sure what to do with it, but I unzip my jeans, slowly wiggle the jeans around my hips recording multiple winces as the drain, still attached to the bucket, is pulling against the bandages and my lung. I place the tube between my legs, my penis in the tube but nothing happens. After ten minutes I ask my wife to draw the curtain so that I have privacy from the hoi polloi and ask her if she might vacate the space too. When she’s gone I slide to the edge of the bed with the agony factor reaching new heights, slip my jeans down to my thighs and, standing, urinate into the receptacle. The relief is wondrous but now I am stuck with a cardboard tube full of urine in my left hand, the side with the wound, too painful to lift and balance on the side table; the drain bucket seems to have caught around my feet and on the other side of the curtain the Healthcare Assistant is announcing breakfast.

I moan, as one would.

My wife slips past the curtain, removes the receptacle from my grasp, gently swings my legs onto the bed and says, “Would you like to take your jeans off now?”

I give my name and address and laughing she removes them.

I missed breakfast so asked for two cups of tea, one for my wife. The Health Care Assistant – who is not English but maybe Portuguese, is horrified at my request. She will no doubt throw away the excess tea and food; but it cannot be given or offered to non-patients. I gave her my best quizzical through-the-pain smile and she gave a second cup of tea.

Some hours pass, interspersed with painkillers. But we both have good books to read, so apart from the moans of others and the woman next door, who is evidently and regrettably senile and continuously asks passing personnel to raise or lower her bed, it is a restful period.

Imogen, my eldest daughter and her husband Jon arrive. I see the relief on their faces as they note I am not yet a corpse; concern, though, at the pipes, wires, bandages and bleeping things attached to my body. Texts have been heard incoming and outgoing on my wife’s phone for some time; it is difficult for loved ones to assess progress and pass accurate forecasts of future longevity. Better to come and assess for oneself. So they did and I am truly pleased to see them. We discuss the birthday party that I am to miss. The weather forecast was wholly inaccurate; outside in the world the thunderstorms had transmuted into a beautiful early summer morning. Cancelled guests would be re-invited and urgent emergency shopping for food and booze would commence as soon as their visit had finished. They depart with good wishes and familial love strengthened anew.

More painkillers are cheering me up and as I am pushed down the corridors in my bed – we are off to a lesser emergency ward - I find myself smiling and nodding to people, with the occasional light wave as successfully developed by the good Queen herself.

Not to a ward do we arrive. We are progressed directly to a room. With air conditioning, great views and separate toilet and shower.

The care assistants and porters have gone, and from a large bag, my wife unpacks supermarket shelves of fresh fruit.

Commotion at the door and in walk my youngest daughter Eloise with her husband Luke. Both of my daughters are strikingly beautiful, their men are good, caring and strong of character. I feel, as I always do when I see them, very blessed. Eloise and Luke have arrived hot foot from a Car Boot Sale, having extracted £221.56 from the passing crowds. They are in great good form with tales of our grandson, aged five, working like an experienced trader. And, evidently, the ever delightful Rosabella, our two-year grand-daughter, had worked the crowd as an added attraction. Before she rightly fell asleep.

Time moved forward, an uprepared but delightful family interlude. Eloise had recieved some instructions from Imogen to gather more food, my wife had to go homne and collect Imogen's birthday present so suddenly they are all up and away and I am left with the charming nurses, a good book and some residual pain.

With their departure, a new Care Assistant, of Polish origin, enters the room and smilingly presses the dinner menu in my hand asking me for my choice. Whilst I study the menu she writes her name, and those of two Senior Nurses, up on a board where I can read them. She presses a small plastic object with two buttons in my hand. One button is to summon assistance, the other to control the lighting.

My wife, briefly to the party before she returns and me to sleep. With wake-up calls for drugs by a super kind and careful Senior Nurse who just so happens to be English, and now in her second career having graduated with her nursing degree a few months earlier. She wears a white uniform dress striped with soft grey and quiet flat-heeled shoes. Her face shines with the love of her vocation and the patients in her care.

In the evening and later in the night I’d worked out how to carry my drain and bucket to the lavatory for minimum pain urination. The only note of exasperation was from the male Portuguese Night Porter who attended me twice in the night because I rolled over onto the service button by mistake. And as I was awake, took my blood pressure and blood for diabetic testing.

In the morning with my wife, who has returned for the finale. I am to be checked by the Head Chest, and if up to snuff, an X-Ray and then discharged.

Head of Chest is from India, in his early forties, tall, dark hair good looking and wearing jeans and a blue button-down shirt. He speaks in high class accented English to his two junior Doctors. He asks my name and birthdate and deigns to address me as Mr. Mansfield. The Juniors, both attractive English girls, smile and giggle at his comments, take notes and make solemn promises to follow up his instructions.

My bucket has had no further activity; all excess air expelled. Pain is reduced – “An X-Ray,” he says, “and you could be good to go.”

He and his entourage sweep out of the room but there is no mobile X-Ray operator available. Into a wheelchair, bucket gripped firmly between my thighs, an English Porter pushing and a male Nurse, from Ghana, in attendance in case the bucket is dropped.

In lifts and down long corridors we traverse. I am not waving or nodding quite so much as the drug regime has been changed for simpler paracetamol and I am in haste to leave. The X-Ray is taken; this time I stand and do not hang from the frame. I am wheeled back to the room and, with my wife, contemplate dressing for departure. Except that the drain with the bucket is still attached.

I open my book; my wife reads hers. Lunch arrives. My wife travels to the end of the hospital to find an inferior sandwich although I offer her a share of roast chicken salad and Rhubarb crumble pudding. And then the grapes which she bought with her.

Another hour and a Senior Nurse bounces in. She is slim, mid-thirties, of Caribbean parentage, born in England, a big smile in a wide face and glasses perched on the end of her nose. She wears a front buttoned dress of deep blue with a white trim. “Did they tell you can go?” she exclaims. “No.,” we say, shaking our heads, for I am attached still to a bucket and wearing hospital pyjamas.

“Aaah,” says the Senior nurse “Let’s get rid of that.” She fetches scissors, wound dressings and other paraphernalia. I sit in a chair, she sits in front of me and pulls up my pyjama jacket to look at my wound. Somehow my knee has disappeared under her dress and I can feel her thigh tensioning as she removes first the dressing and then the drain. I am too excited to feel immediate pain, but once she is standing and dressing the wound I feel that I am still stabbed, but at least the blade has been removed.

She leaves, we are about to leave when I remember the needle with the cannula still stuck in my hand. I press the service button, point to my cannulated hand and a happy blonde Polish Health Care assistant removes it with the minimum fuss and pain.

And home. Feeling better now than I have for months.

The treatment I received from the staff of the NHS is second to none. From life threatening illness to feeling better than I have for months in just two days seem to me to be magic. It is not. It is dedication and training at all levels that saves lives and makes people comfortable.

I have noted, where I can, the uniforms of staff. The more formal the uniform, the more the person wearing it is likely to be from an Agency and more expensive, as opposed to directly employed by the NHS. But then... the higher up the ladder, the more casual the clothes.

I have also noted where I can the gender and nationality of the people who treated me. Come Brexit, the NHS may lose these wonderful people and could be in a very sorry state very quickly.

Meantime, to the staff of St Peter’s Hospital, Weybridge…. A huge thank you for saving my life.

And my best wishes also to the entertainers and my hopes they may be released from prison in due course.

As for smoking. Well, this addiction too has now run it's course. One day at a time I will smoke no more.

If you enjoyed this true story take a look at my books here

Water fills the bottom tenth, to trap and monitor the air which will hopefully escape.

THE COST OF TRAVELLING EUROPE

Thu, 16 Nov 2017 12:25:04 +0200

If you're thinking about travelling Europe here's some notes on how far you can get, and what it's likely to cost.

I sourced the information from the Economist, Booking.com, a couple of global gasoline and cost of living indexes, and of course my own experience riding in these countries.

My recommendation? Try Ukraine. It's just 1,500 miles from Dover, cost less than most other countries with most people under 40 speaking English. And it's a different world! And travel there via Romania... surely some of the world's greatest motorcycle rides.

Here's the cost

Here's the time and distance

Read the books, discover the truth

NFTR8_5

Wed, 15 Nov 2017 15:24:47 +0200

Click on the image for your free download
If you need the password, email me here and tell me how we met :)

A REMARKABLE BOSOM

Fri, 20 Oct 2017 18:31:48 +0300

THE BOSOM IS REMARKABLE, AND THE POSTERIOR, IN SKI PANTS, IS NOT WITHOUT ATTRACTION.

With the colours of autumn enhancing the day the road was perfect; lumpy bumpy, but traffic free. The silence, when stopped, and the engine off, was all consuming. Birds sang, the sun was warm but my thoughts were fixed on my dice.

The turn onto to this road was, according to the satnav, perfectly legitimate. But I had no internet connection and the route had been downloaded, not live, leaving an error of margin of two kilometres. Two kilometres away from the prescribed route and the screen was empty. No route, no position, nothing but birdsong, whispering leaves and me.

Even for Ukraine’s pseudo motorways, where people, dogs, cattle and chickens wander free, this road was not even close to pseudo.

The dice then. Left for even numbers, turn right for odd. Or should I trust to luck and road sign for Kovel and the Old Military Road.

An hour earlier I had pulled to another stop at the side of the road because on the motorway on to which I had just turned the traffic, an avalanche of steel across three lanes, was travelling towards me at speed. ‘Not right’ said a voice in my head. And behind me airbrakes hissed bringing a twelve-wheeler to a halt.

Whilst I stared at the traffic, then at my sat nav and then at the traffic again the driver of the twelve-wheeler had arrived at my shoulder.

We used the language of transcontinental travellers everywhere. We looked at each other’s phones, scrolled left and right, mumbled, multiple use of the word describing Anglo Saxon sexual congress and then pointed out to each other that the three lane motorway coming towards us started in earnest just five hundred metres ahead. From that point, travelling west, it was a dual carriageway with no central barrier.

Simply a matter then, of waiting for a gap in the traffic, accelerating at speed for the said five hundred metres, bit of swerve and all would be well.

We agreed, in the same trans-continental language that this was the best way forward. But he would let me go first.

The gap in the traffic occurred, away with hard throttle in first, second and when the engine screamed to third; the swerve and all is tickety boo. In my mirror I saw the truck complete the manoeuvre to his satisfaction too.

An hour, and to the rich autumnal road on which I now sat astride Moto Gelato.

The trouble with navigating by dice is that you must follow the throw. You cannot throw two or more times to get a result you wish for; for you have no idea where the wish will take you. The rule is to follow the dice until a cross road or t-junction or dead end appears. Only then can you throw again.

From road signs and my limited Ukrainian I thought there might be a village ahead. I would ask for directions perhaps, before the finality of the capricious dice.

A village, a shop and I’m up the steps into the store and in my finest English, babble of the road to Kovel, internet and sat nav.

A conversation ensues amongst the staff – one in mid-thirties who spoke of me as being an American before I corrected her, and the other in her sixties who had knowledge of nothing outside the village and what she saw on television.

But they did have internet. Except the password was unknown.

The shop’s sole customer took charge.

She is woman used to taking charge. Perhaps head of the village church council or Womens Institute, she is in here early-fifties, naturally blonde, make-up tastefully applied, a pillowy bosom and rounded posterior, plump, partially concealed by a smart black gilet, she takes my arm and propels me out of the shop

The road is crossed, I am gestured forward, with my arm still gripped, to a small building which, rather than being her home where she might offer me home made cake and tea, turns out to be an internet shop, here in the middle of the village in the middle of nowhere.

Control of the internet store is in the hands of a dark haired mousy looking girl, early twenties, who, once the problem is described, looks at me with pity thinking, no doubt, that age has encroached too far and this more than mature motorcycle traveller has completely lost his marbles. In addition to his dice and the internet.

A command from my blonde companion and my phone is connected to the Net. Maps appear, directions shown and voice of the GPS states ‘U-turn ahead’.

Interestingly, dice never offer the option of a u-turn.

Out of the shop, and I am delivered back to the motorcycle. Her hand is still firm on my arm; her other hand takes mine more gently. A brilliant white smile, and in the velvet contralto voice of an actress in semi-retirement, I am given, in English, a long, lingering and breathy ‘Gooooodbye English’

I ride away with joy, smiling at chance encounters in a small village in nowhere.

If you enjoyed this note, take a look at the books

#notesfromtheroadvoliv

THE MOSKOVITCH, MIG AND MOTO GELATO

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 14:38:55 +0300

THE MOSKOVITCH, A MIG AND MOTO GELATO

The border queue from Poland to Ukraine was longer than usual – maybe people returning after a weekend away. It was over two hours, long enough to make the acquaintance of a BMW rider who was returning to Lviv. Long enough to tell him about the disasters that always seem to befall when I ride into the city.

With good English he told me that he would guide me out to the road to Kiev and plentiful hotels to stay the night. And this he did at a speed, in the dark, with which I was not entirely comfortable for the visor in my helmet kept getting steamed up. And it was raining for a good part of the way.

Well met and helpful and I did not have traverse the cobbles and holes in the city centre. Having said goodbye I turned to booking.com and looked for a night’s stay.

The first motel was five minutes away but they didn’t take cards. The second, and third... the same result. Only cash. And the only cash I had was not enough.

To the Ibis where I knew they took cards to find the man in the queue in front of me had taken the very last room.

The cobbles of the inner city were lit golden from my headlight and gleamed in the grey damp mist; the streets where I roamed looking for an ATM were narrow and old, the holes in the cobbles were bigger than the doorways of the surrounding block apartments. And found, at the second attempt, a working Bank o Mat that actually distributed money.

Cash in my pocket, good to go, but the GPS had failed because I had no internet connection. More roaming madness and the lights of a four star hotel beckoned in the gloom. Yes, they took cards as well as cash but the kitchens were closed even for a simple coffee with no froth.

To bed then, hungry, tired but up in the morning, sun shining, wifi connected and inclusive the breakfast in the price.

Onto the E40, Europe’s longest road and a range of low mountains avoided as the road turned north then east and onward into Ukraine’s steppe. Golden corn still unharvested, blue skies, Ukraine’s flag perfectly depicted here in the countryside.

The E40 and equally signed M06 is not a motorway. On Sunday morning it wound through villages with crowds spilling from green and gold domed churches, the domes and the jewellery of the pious catching bright flashes in the sunshine.

Joining the churchgoers are chickens, cows and horses and, on faster stretches of dual carriageway, traffic police and traffic police stations straddling the road to advise innocent speeders that their innocence is now lost.

Up now for petrol and the strange constellation of the Moskovitch, MIG and Moto Gelato all caught together in an unknown town in the middle of the 550 km ride to Kiev.

Another monument in the previous town was a tank in the centre of the roundabout. It’s not as if Ukrainians need reminding of war… there is one still going on in the east.

And to endorse that fact, and a few minutes later at a marble shrine in the middle of the road, a black bearded, black robed priest with a huge hooked nose incanted a service all on his own, dedicated to the dead and all the Saints.

At the side of the road, particularly near junctions, Babushkas sat selling their garden produce. The further east the more sophisticated the displays. Huge pumpkins, golden orange and round, the size of vintage iMacs, are placed in pyramids. The synchronicity does not end; pears, large and last of the season, are also piled in pyramids to urge the passing traffic to stop and look.

There are men selling vegetables at the roadside too. But they do not nod and smile like the headscarved Babushka’s.

The men are uniformly selling staples – potatoes. And all the potatoes are in 25 kg purple see through sacks. The men glower, they do not smile. Violent swerves are observed as some, in desperation to slow the traffic, seem to be barricading the road with their full potato sacks. It is obvious to me that their Babushka wives have driven them to the sales site, unloaded the quota to be sold, then toddled off home to watch Sunday sport on their widescreen televisions.

Nearer to the capital large blue plastic bags containing something green are hanging from trees and vendor’s poles. And a good selection of witches’ brooms. Of the contents of the bags I know nothing at all.

It rains, pockets of fog, larger stretches of mist. I am sure I saw two men selling large automatic rifles and at a bus stop, perhaps out of boredom, a couple of would be passengers committing a carnal act. But it has to be said that my glasses and visor were steamed up, and the moment was caught at the side of my eye.

Finally to the City and the heavens, because it is Sunday, open. Rain in a downpour, vision to ten metres and a litany of roadworks. But I remember the road, turn left at the Harley dealership and within a few minutes I’m in the dry eating soup and catching up with personal news.

#LoveUkraine #notesfromtheroadvoliv.

My new book, Notes From The Road Vol III is now available; click here for a signed copy.

kerfuffle in a hurricane

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 14:24:20 +0300

At a roundabout four kilometres from the home of my friends and eighteen minutes before the hurricane arrived Moto Gelato picked a fight with a Yaris. The Yaris, in the wrong lane, ignoring the legal right of way, and driven by a young person who was not a man, also ignored Gelato's turn signal and clipped the rear wheel. To the roadbed, and then pulled upright by me and a passing stranger to find nothing amiss except the mirror skewed and the fact the bike would not start.

The hurricane descending, street lamps bending and garbage strewn from upended bins, I had not the heart to dig out tools and look for a fix. So a call to the Motor Racer Garage and Cafe here in Wroclaw and a pick up van arrived in a trice.

Not easy, the moving of the bike into the van with 100 kph winds howling, but it was done, and bike whisked away to be repaired overnight.

The clutch sensor fixed, again, Gelato in fine fettle, the hurricane headed east, so I'll follow it in the morning.

#notesfromtheroadvoliv

Not easy, the moving of the bike into the van with 100 kph winds howling, but it was done, and bike whisked away to be repaired overnight.

The clutch sensor fixed, again, Gelato in fine fettle, the hurricane headed east, so I'll follow it in the morning.

#notesfromtheroadvoliv

THE BROTHEL

Tue, 01 Aug 2017 21:44:38 +0300

I’d been very careful to spend all my Ukrainian cash before I reached the Ukrainian/Polish border. The petrol tank was full, the road, typical of so many border roads was less than good.

I saw the café as I came around a bend; the speed was sufficiently slow that I just glided in and came to a halt. And remembered that I’d spent all my money; they didn’t take cards in isolated establishments like this.

No soup for me then, this lunchtime; I sat on the bike and took the opportunity for a smoke.

Moto Gelato has straight through pipes. The exhaust roar had heralded my arrival and after a few minutes a short woman in her forties, face nut brown from the sun and creased with smile lines, sporting a slight belly and good legs appeared at my elbow.

The conversation went something like this. “Sprachen sie Deutsch? Nyet? Where are you going to? North by Northwest? To Poland? You have a wife? Where is she? Where have you come from? Odessa? When you last have sex? You like to have sex with me?”

Now I know that I am not a large and physically beautiful man exuding sex appeal with every lift of the eyebrow so this was hardly going to be a straight proposition, here in the heat of the midday sun at lunchtime, while I was still wearing my helmet.

“You have cash, euros?” said with a winning smile.

I hope I was polite in my refusal. “Madame”, I replied, “I cannot afford a bowl of soup, let alone your sexual favours, wonderful as they might be”

“Hryvna?” with a regretful smile once more creasing her face.

“I would like soup. Can you accept Hungarian Forints?”

“Nyet Hungarian”

She smiled, I smiled, I started the bike and rode away. I saw her, in mirror, waving.

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THE ROAD TO ZATOKA

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 15:21:15 +0300

JOURNEY 2017. THE ROAD TO ZATOKA

The Coca Cola is cold, and served in a plastic cup so thin it could be reused as a condom.

No matter; it is not to be rushed, this drink, for I have sweltered two hours in leathers in 36 degrees of heat, as measured here on the continent of Europe.

I have travelled here before. I was searching for the Black Sea ferry to Batumi, in Georgia; eventually found and a voyage of three days enjoyed.

The road surface was bad seven years ago. Since then a million tonnes of trucks and cars have driven over it and the repairs are yet to start. But some things are new; bright orange road signs warning of bad road surface ahead.

Since Crimea was stolen by the Russian Dictator, Ukrainians have chosen Odessa and the surrounding beaches and countryside for their summer playground. As a consequence, the traffic has been nose to tail for fifty kilometres. Thank goodness for Moto Gelato, said I to myself, as I wove through the traffic on rutted melting roads with serious holes.

There is no point, on this road, to overtake vehicles at speed; it is also singularly dangerous. And, in any case, there are junctions with and without traffic lights, queues of trucks and accidents. I limit overtaking to when the traffic stops or stalls. My life is worth more than twenty seconds gained when overtaking at speed.

The journey then, is four hours instead of Google's projected one point five. No matter; finally I arrive at the designated hotel, a grey unprepossessing cube of thirty, three by three rooms.

Reception was one of the bedrooms with no bed; a seemingly scatter-brained teenage girl in charge could not work out my booking. A young man, presumed to be her manager, arrived after being summoned by phone.

It took him just ten minutes to tell me that the online booking I had made just thirty minutes earlier had been for the week ahead; there were no rooms in the Inn today.

I did not mind; far worse happens. Also, I was sitting in the shade of their building, sipping water, taken from the bottle strapped to the bike. The water was hot, but sufficiently liquid on the tongue.

The booking.com app on my phone treated me kindly once more. The hotels in the village of Zatoka were booked to 92% but a bed was found a few kilometres on.

Saddle up and on the way and I passed the hotel in which I stayed seven years ago after I could take the toilets in the camping ground no more. It was here that I met Walter, a young German IT manager and his girlfriend – a fine couple. It was here that the rain fell so heavily that the main street was flooded and impassable within a few minutes.

But today, nothing but sunshine. And as the road ran out and turned into sand, there was the gleaming white walled Hotel Alba, sitting right on the beach with a cool breeze incoming.

We are looked after, we travellers.

Speedos

Tue, 25 Jul 2017 13:43:28 +0300

JOURNEY 2017. ON THE BEACHES OF VAPNYARKA, SPEEDO'S RULE.

On the beach, most of the men over the age of 45, wear Speedos.

The swimming trunks, carefully cut to accentuate genital size and to tuck neatly below the spreading waistline are so popular that I wonder if there is not a container load nearby, recently snaffled and sold off cheap.

The young display their beauty, those older stand with their hands on their hips, stomachs bursting from Speedos and flowery bikinis alike; to the untutored eye it would seem pregnancy is no longer gender specific.

A woman of fifty is standing, talking to her man. He is suntanned, his back is muscled and his buttocks still good until he turns in profile. Then he, like his wife, looks pregnant too.

As she speaks with him she does not look into his face; she is focused on the round brown belly he displays and speaks directly to it. It is her investment of course. In Ukraine, the paunch is called “social savings”; after the first few months of marriage and passion the woman will seek to tie him to her apron strings with constancy of food and drink.

Her man has a moustache which he uses to punctuate and accentuate his speech. She cannot see for she is looking lovingly at his belly. When she replies she thrusts her own stomach forward and looks at him up meekly.

There are slim men on the beach. Silver haired, military bearing. They are slim I think, because they uniformly smoke. I, too, am slim.

Clothed now, the crowds are leaving the beach. The older ones are stuffed into oversize shirts and shorts, the women in impossibly tight jeans.

The young leave too, still beautiful.

The same scene is re-enacted by similar people across our beautiful world.

The sea takes on a deeper blue as the sun dips and the waves lap the beach, clearing from the sand the footsteps of a thousand feet.

Love Ukraine.

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The Armenian Hotelier

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 09:36:29 +0300

JOURNEY 2017. THE ARMENIAN HOTELIER AND A RIDE IN THE NIGHT

The Hotelier, Samuel Torunian, an emigré from Armenia.

He sits at the first table on the right in his restaurant with his book of room bookings in front of him. We have no mutual language so my Couchsurfing Host, Alexandra, from Chisnau, the capital of the previous country, translates his long and ardently apologetic speech. The short form of which, at 10.00, is that no rooms are available until 13.00.

He and his nephew, a four-times graduate of Yerevan University, have refurbished the hotel and built a two-storey building with eight rooms from wood, with their own hands. And the restaurant too. In the evenings, Samuel is the chef for the shaslik; perhaps one of the best I have tasted.

Even with no language it is not long before I understand that Samuel was for 13 years a professional footballer for the team Ararat-Yerevan. He shows me film, on his phone, of his nephew, a player for Manchester United. I am happy for him, but tire of watching quite quickly. I am not a football person. Besides, my wife, in England, supports the Arsenal.

I arrived at the Comfort hotel, at Vapnyarka, near Odessa in Ukraine by a circuitous route.

The previous day, in Chisnau, Moldova, my Couchsurfing Host expressed a wish to visit the coast. There is no coast in Moldova; I said I am going to Odessa to make a surprise visit to my business partner who is holidaying with family and friends and asked, “Shall I take you there?”

She had courage, it must be said. Her first ride ever on a motorcycle and no option, once we go, to turn around and go back home for tea.

At four in the afternoon, in Chisnau, we left, heading east. Google Sat Nav was as falsely optimistic as ever; the three hours and twenty-eight minutes predicted turned into eight.

The roads were not good. The city of Tiraspol, on the most direct route, is in the hands of Russian backed insurgents seeking bribes and other extortions, thus to be avoided. A border was crossed, lines of trucks the size of houses with headlights blinding, massive repairs negotiated, in the dark, with raw road chippings spitting out from under the tyres and red dust in my eyes thicker than the smog of New Delhi.

And finally, to Odessa, at midnight, with the only rooms seemingly available above a twenty-four hour car wash where the power system for the high-pressure pumps were loud and insistent the whole night through. In the morning, a walk of five hundred metres to get instant coffee from a machine.

This was not the Odessa of the Opera House and Potemkin Steps well-loved from previous visits; this was a carwash backwater nightmare.

To the coast then, with the help of booking.com, to meet the Armenian Hotelier.

An hour through the city, topping a rise and there, shining in the sunshine, the sea. One hundred metres down the hill and on the left, the Comfort Hotel, the Armenian Hotelier and his graduate nephew.

So friendly these two; and via translation, good tellers of tales.

To the cabanas to sleep; but so thin the walls that in the room on the left I could hear Alexandra earnestly praying and on the right a woman elbowing her husband to stop his snoring.

The next day Alexandre admitted that her new-found enthusiasm for motorcycling, and Moto Gelato in particular, had appreciably diminished. The trouble, she noted, was in her thighs. The vibration, on the road, although probably helping to reduce cellulite, was too painful for her to go further.

I find the vibrations from Moto Gelato oddly comforting, but then my legs are like string with knots for knees.

In an hour, she was gone to visit with friends in Odessa, and thence on a bus to return to Moldova.

And me, a day later, to revisit Zadoka.

#notesfromtheroadvoliv

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Beekeepers in Romania

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:12:25 +0300

The bee keepers in the villages, in the mountains of Romania, rise very early on Saturdays, the market day.

They arrive, by car, motorcycle and by horse and cart to the village centres and set up their stands. The golden honey is labelled according to the plants growing near the hives. Their customers are discerning; tastings and discussions are lengthy before a price is agreed and a purchase made.

On sale too are shoes and clothes and pots, pans and household goods.

By eight o clock the barbecues are working, smoke rising to join the last tendrils of the night’s mist. By nine the bars, cafes and restaurants are full. Waitresses are rushed serving strong black coffee with sugar and a generous hint of something alcoholic as a chaser.

In the village I am in, there are deciduous trees comforting the road. Dark trunks, a cover of deep green before the sun fully rises over the mountain.

When I leave, and start riding, the tree cover changes to pine. The mountains are higher, the slopes steeper and the hairpins sharper.

An hour and down to the plain, a perfect valley through which to run a road but the engineers had different priorities, perhaps, as I climb and twist another mountain.

Finally, it is apparent that the road builders did this to afford me one last bite of the Romanian mountain cherry.

Such an amazing country, such amazing people.

A bientot Romania. I hope that I’ll return

#notesfromtheroadvoliv

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JOURNEY 2017 NEW BORDER, NEWS OF NEW SCAMS.

Mon, 17 Jul 2017 12:31:31 +0300

My host, a woman of 28 who is fluent in five languages and comes from Moldova, is speaking into my voice recorder.

“When I was 21, still at university, I was arrested and taken to jail. I was charged with trafficking minors for sex. I did not see a lawyer for two days. My cellmate, a Russian woman, had been arrested and charged for smuggling uranium into Moldova”

Earlier, before this conversation took place, and as I approached the border, I realised I didn’t know much about Moldova

My host, a woman of 28 who is fluent in five languages and comes from Moldova, is speaking into my voice recorder.

“When I was 21, still at university, I was arrested and taken to jail. I was charged with trafficking minors for sex. I was not allowed to see a lawyer for two days. My cellmate, a Russian woman, had been arrested and charged for smuggling uranium into Moldova”

Earlier, before this conversation took place, and as I approached the border, I realised I didn’t know much about Moldova

Previously part of the Soviet Union, I had assumed the Nation would speak Russian; in fact, Romanian is the official language.

Corruption is and was endemic in Eastern Europe and I learned very quickly it is alive and well in Moldova.

I handed my passport and bike documents to a customs official. An overfed and uniformed woman returned with the document. “No Green Card. Big trouble”.

Few English travellers have Green card insurance as British insurance companies do not sell it. When I travel, I buy the worthless insurance at the border to avoid fines and bribes to be paid if stopped by traffic police.

I told her this, but she said “Return to Bucharest. Buy it there.” And she walked off. Moments later another uniformed guard arrived. He was mid 30’s, blonde, handsome with a crease in his trousers and a shine on his shoes. He repeated my problem and added, “You cannot buy insurance in Moldova, must be bought in Romania”.

This conversation is in a dark corner next to the customs building, a temporary metal office now made permanent. Over his shoulder I can see two things: a poster denouncing corruption with a telephone number to call; and further, about 30 metres inside his country border, a line of portacabin offices with the sign “Assigura – Insurance” above them.

I am English, I am indignant, I am pretty much fucked by this petty official. I also know that any bribe is split with him and his superiors. To complain means I will be denied entrance to the country. I am banned from entering Kazakhstan for refusal to pay bribes at the border to simply leave the country.

And being English, and assumed to have money, I am asked how much money I have. I say, “I have nothing except one hundred Romanian Lei”

He replied, “Lay 100 Lei in your passport, hand me the passport and I will see what I can do about your big problem” I am easily drawn into the corruption. One hundred lei is 20 Euros. I could be stuck here for hours or trying to return to a Romanian city and the dark is gathering.
The principle swallowed, money and passport handed over. In ten minutes, I am fast tracked to the head of the queue, stamped and motioned through the barriers no stop.

I buy fifteen days insurance for three euros to avoid questions from policemen on the road. And head toward the Capital.

Of human trafficking, high level corruption and scamming - there will be more. Later.

#notesfromtheroadvoliv

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THE ROAD TO STARA LUBOVNA

Sat, 08 Jul 2017 21:31:34 +0300

JOURNEY 2017. THE ROAD TO STARA LUBOVNA.

I'd passed through these mountains, the High Tatras, once before. I was riding alone on a Victory Vegas on the way to the Kurdistan. I rode the mountains in the pitch black night because I couldn’t find anywhere to stay. In the end, I gave up, and parked the Victory at the side of the road and slept fully dressed, in a ditch, in the rain.

This time it was different. I was on Moto Gelato, in daylight. This time I was aware of the dangers, of the road. Little had changed. The roads ran from good to awful, greasy in the rain on the hairpins. But I could see lakes, rivers, mountains. And, of course, the rain. And also, this time, I have yet to set a destination.

My journey here from Poland was mainly uneventful. Four hundred kilometres of fast running motorway until Krakow and the right turn into the mountains.

Villages, surely unchanged for centuries, but now coloured prettily in pastels, strung to together across the valley floors. In one village, a small boy marched past; head up, shoulders back, good posture and stride. Obviously soldiers were marching inside his tawny blonde head.

There were repairs for several kilometres. The road bed had been scarified, ripped into tiny valleys and cross currents that took hold of the rear wheel and moved it to its own accord. Petrified I rode in the centre slowly, holding back a queue of impatient motorists. A workman jumped into the road, shouting, urging me on for more speed. I replied, but impolitely.

Another village and a dark haired hand maiden of joy strutted her stuff in smart green jacket, short black skirt and tippity high heels. In truth she was so well dressed she may have been a wedding guest who had lost the wedding but I was past before the question formed in my head.

The SatNav, ignored by me and sulking, got us both lost. I deployed the dice, turned right and found myself in mountain town. The tarmac turned to cobbles and pitched me into a massive central square where a huge rock concert was pounding out the pace. Sat Nav returned to life and took me all around the square. Mine was the only vehicle moving, exhaust heard rumbling in a break in the music and the audience turned to applaud me. A small lane appeared; the Sat Nav urged me forward and I left, wondering if I was in the middle of a surreal dream.

Ahead the mountains darkened, steam rose as if in a tropical jungle. Elevation increased, the road narrowed to a single track and a border sign appeared. Down now, still on a single track and I was spilt onto a six lane motorway which, within two kilometres, changed into holes decorated with tarmac.

Another few kilometres and the valley opened before me, green meadows, golden corn, a river shining in the distance. And there, in front of me, the remembered fortress town, built with multicoloured Soviet apartment blocks, high up on a hill.

Stara Lubovana.

And this night, thankfully, I would sleep in a hotel.

#notesfromtheroadvoliv

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Journey 2017, Day 1, the next 10 hours

Tue, 04 Jul 2017 10:21:02 +0300

Journey 2017. Day 1. The next ten hours.

Once I’d washed the petrol from my eyes I went back to the bike to complete filling the tank. The pump dispenser had stopped and wouldn’t work.

I went back inside to ask for help; after queueing for another five minutes the assistant told me what I already knew; the pump had stopped working. I must go outside, holster the nozzle, return to her, pay for the fuel so far and then make a new fill and purchase. Outside, nozzle holstered, return to queue, pay the eighteen pence used, back out again, new fill up, back inside to queue and pay.

It’s just after six a.m; I didn’t know I had just started a repeated ritual for two more countries…

To the ferry at speed but no avail. It is fifty two minutes before sailing, but I am too late. Bikes must check-in an hour before standard vehicles. This apparently, is because it takes an hour to strap eight motorcycles down on the car deck. The ferry missed, but P&O were up to the challenge, smiling “You can get the next one”

Lovely, but my schedule, and the 850 kilometres ride ahead, is now a lost dream.

Boarded, strapped, I made my way to the lounge and bought coffee and bacon butty. Pretty good, but for £8.50 I would have expected them to provide a napkin too.

It was my pleasure to meet a fellow smart bearded biker, Lynton, who, apparently, carried out maintenance on these ferries before he retired. Lynton rides a Harley, wears Barbour rain jacket, leather race trousers that he picked up used for £25. He has more kit packed for a weekend camping in the Netherlands than I would take for a year. But he is not as Spartan as me. He does, however have a generosity of spirit and a fund of stories.

We spoke also of his wife, taken by cancer three years ago, with whom he shared all life and his motorcycle journeys. I understood from Lynton that she was a most courageous woman, especially in the last days of her life.

As I was late for the last ferry, I was at the head of the queue for this one. I said to Lynton that in no circumstances should he follow me as I will be lost in minutes, he should overtake and go ahead immediately.

The hangar doors opened, motorcycles were started, loud roars and much throttle playing a tympani for the drivers of cages. Then nothing happened for ten minutes, each motorcyclist turning off their engines one by one until just one forlorn thumper at the back thrummed without much zealotry. The cages were waved off, trucks long gone, and we motorcyclists finally departed quietly, throttle diminished, clutch feathered as we sought a good path across the rain soaked steel deck.

In daylight, on the road, I was optimistic of the weather. But, of course, it rained. Northern France is only 26 miles and small sea crossing from Southern England. Why do I always think the weather will change to glorious unbroken sunshine?

Change it did not. Grey, damp, fine rain, then heavy but the wind dried out the leather jacket and blue jeans.

To a petrol station where the pumps did not work, at least for me. I got 11 cents of petrol and shutdown. To the petrol pay desk and short square Belgian woman (for this, I believe, was Belgium) with cropped grey blonde hair and a square suntanned face. In English she said. “You do not fill up?” I said, “I would like to, but it doesn’t work”

“OK, you must pay for this and try again. But first you must place the nozzle in the holster.”

To the pump, nozzle holstered, return to the queue and say “May I pay the 11 cents?”
Which I did, and returned to the pump. By now, I had a plan. I would use a different grade of petrol. Nozzle in the motorcycle’s tank, trigger pressed. Six cents and not a drip more.

Beaten, I holstered the nozzle, returned to the queue, paid six cents and thought “Enough”. I will go to another petrol station.

But on return to the bike I finally saw what I was looking for all the time. A card dispenser, that worked in English. Moto Gelato and I were ecstatic, card worked, in English and tank brimmed; a coffee was the thought for celebration. The bike move up next to the restaurant, inside to the autodispense coffee machine where I can’t get my card to work after three attempts. At the self-serve cafeteria I found a human who served coffee and accepted the card, which worked.

To the lavatory then, where no admittance can be gained without paying 50 cents. Outside to hop up and down a bit and ask a man who was looking at my bike if there was a cash machine on the premises. “No”, he said “this is a nice bike. I am a biker too.”

I am now hopping with some vigour; this was not the Tango I wished to dance across Europe. He asked if there was anything wrong. I admitted that I was in dire need of a lavatory. I accepted the permanent loan of 50 cents and made it with seconds to spare.

Enough of toilet talk. I have to make another 650 kms this day.

It rains.

This time the wind does not dry me out. I stop under a bridge to put on wet weather gear and rain comes down in a biblical flood. I ride in wet clothes with the outside equally wet. Steam builds in my helmet, the rain hits the road and bounces a metre in the air. Vehicles pass at outrageous speeds, spray is everywhere.

I stop after ninety minutes for fuel. This time I understand how to buy it. But now I am in Germany, still with no cash. I check the cost of “using the facilities” and find crossing the border has increased the price by 30%. I ask the dark haired young woman at the counter to add 70 cents to the bill so that I can use the lavatory. She does, but perhaps not with all the grace she could muster if she tried.

But happily I do not have to hang around outside the lavatory accosting strangers asking for money. However, I did leave the keys behind on top a radiator – not prepared to pay another 70 cents I scrambled under the children’s entrance thinking that I should have done this before.

To the coffee counter; coffee poured, card proffered, card machine does not work. Serving assistant pouts and I get the coffee free. Result! I thought as I stood outside smoking one of my three a day with the rain soaking the tobacco and finally extinguishing the cigarette.

This story repeats itself a couple more times; the only changes are the comments from fellow travellers in shorts and t-shirts as I standing puddling the floor but I have something new to keep my mind occupied. The Satnav – Ms Ndrive, now deceased – is showing journey time and kilometres to go. The bike time is still set to GMT and of course, in miles. I don’t know if the phone based satnav has automatically changed the time zone, if it will be light when I get to my destination or how much the interminable road works and relentless rain is altering the estimated time of arrival. For which zone.

To keep focused I pray with gratitude for the inventor of waterproof socks and make furtive glances at the grips on my handlebars; I recently wrapped them with strips of leather left over from the manufacture of my pannier bags. But this is thin stuff for the mind and grips have darkened, soaking wet. I try whistling but water, not air, is bubbling from my mouth.

Finally my voices have an internal discussion agreeing it was a good thing that the Marseilles crook on eBay, from whom I ordered a blue steel, open faced Biltwell helmet - the only medium size advertised in all ofEurope - had not delivered it. For I would be in a much worse state if he had.

And on this agreement, the rain almost stopped, the sun, hidden by the clouds all day, sank finally below the horizon and I arrived, wet, tired but welcomed to a small town in Germany.

#notesfromtheroadvoliv

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Shepherd's warning

Fri, 30 Jun 2017 14:31:01 +0300

RED SKY IN THE MORNING, SHEPHERD’S WARNING.

The first minutes of the first day of my 2017 journey started well enough.

As I stepped through my door I heard the bird chorus and felt the soft warm dawn around me. I tied my granddaughter's pink satin hair ribbon to the mirror, to remind me which side of the road I should be riding on. A simple thing, but the emotion welled in my heart at the thought of not seeing her, or my grandson, for a couple of months.

My experience is that I remember which side of the road I should be riding on for a few days and then, as confidence builds, I ride onward and wonder why all the people in the cars and trucks are flashing their lights at me.

My experience is also that, in the east, and certain parts of the west, I may be taken to task for sporting a pink ribbon to wave in the wind.

But here, too, was another big uncertainty. Was the pink dawn I saw truly pink? Or had it glowed red a few minutes earlier in a Shepherd’s warning of bad weather ahead.

Emotion contained, bike burbling and I’m off down the drive, hand raised in a romantic wave hoping my wife is waving from behind the blinds; but at 4.30 a.m. I realise this may be a forlorn hope.

To the motorway in a few minutes, the course set south west to Dover. Little traffic apart from the trucks ferrying the lifeblood of commerce and the thought that the sooner Amazon starts it’s delivery drones how empty these roads might be. With French truckers rioting first over the loss of jobs.

I pass a couple of Harley riders – a surprise to find Harley people out so early – waving my left leg as a greeting in the Continental fashion.

Fifty minutes into the hour and half ride and the low petrol light comes on. How can this be? I rode to Wales two days earlier and proved a tank would last 180 miles. I filled up when I got back from Wales to be ready for today,

I slow done and ride the hard shoulder while I puzzle this out. The Harley guys pass and point at my rear. “What now?” I thought ”What fresh hell is this?"

A look at rear showed one of the bolts on my licence plate had fallen out. I secured it with the general bits of string that tied down my luggage, but what had this to do with the petrol?

I started off again but now the word FUEL was magically flashing on the dashboard a counter was ticking down,

I fought with my memory, a hard thing to do with an age related black hole. Had I filled it, or had I not?

I stopped again, dialled up the nearest petrol on Ndrive, a Sat Nav system no longer supported by the defunct company.

Petrol ahead, three kilometres I was told.

I do sometimes have challenges converting metric to imperial and vice versa. But I’m convinced if I change the settings the entire thing will stop forever.

I knew I had to get petrol fast, I’d taken off the petrol cap, shook the bike but could see and hear nothing.

Riding on, three kilometres had long since passed; at twenty, with the Grace of God I turned for Ashford, Kent and was directed to a shopping centre. Sainsbury’s had just opened and with a lighter heart I rolled to a stop to fill up.

And then ran in the shop, and, as it had no lavatory, ran to the front of the queue and shouted “Help, I’ve got petrol in my eyes”

The woman behind the counter, Sainsbury’s trained and English to the core, rolled her eyes to and said to customer at the front of the queue, “I’m so sorry Sir, this is the second person who has pushed in front of you. I will deal with him and come back to you”

I’m listening to the niceties, hopping up and down in pain, reliving the moment the petrol sprayed from the tank into my eyes, wondering if I was to go blind, and thinking this is quite a busy morning so far.

And perhaps I hadn't filled the tank the day before.

And then….

THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS STOCKING FILLER

Fri, 18 Nov 2016 11:44:47 +0200

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THE TANGO CLUB OF CHATEAULAINE

Fri, 21 Oct 2016 18:18:23 +0300

I dried the champagne from the left foot first; sheathed in a silky fishnet stocking it took far too few moments to complete.
A champagne glass, not mine, had been accidentally knocked and tilted; the liquid spilling across the table cloth and down onto to my conversation partner’s foot.
I dried the glossy high-heeled shoe. The foot again, placed and sliding safely in the shoe.
Champagne refreshed, conversation renewed in English with a light and delicious French accent.
You may wish to ask what a Tango Club, even if it is positioned near the banks of a small but exquisite river city in the far west of Brittany, has to with Adventure Motorcycling.

CHE GUEVARA DANCED THE TANGO.

Neither he nor I actively sought adventure of the motorcycling kind. Some of you may even remember the film Last Tango In Paris starring Marlon Brando. I haven’t seen it personally but I understand butter sales increased dramatically on it’s release. Meantime, here at the Tango Club of Chateaulaine, my knowledge of French culture was certainly extended further.
Two days earlier, eight hundred kilometres to the east near the city of Verdun, I had been rescued from heart stopping moto repair expenses by M. Bruno Boivin; the following morning, an early start with a day in the sunshine and journey’s end in Brittany and convenient parking next to a Yamaha DTMX 125 motorcycle that has been ridden to the end’s of earth.
Of this latter I am allowed to say nothing except it’s owner, on her own on her own world ride, packed as essentials a ball gown and a fine pair of high heeled dancing shoes. Some people take tyre irons, others, myself included, are more relaxed.
At the Tango club my feet are tapping; I would join these elegant couples but for two important things. First, my fine brown brogue boots sport rubber commando soles to stop any slippage and second, whereas I can dance, vaguely, the Bossa Nova, my memory tells me I have never tangoed in my life.
There are sixty people gathered; the age range is twenty-three to eighty, the majority at forty plus. With few exceptions both men and women are slim, tanned and muscle toned from dancing. Women wear drama – red or black or midnight blue silk dresses slashed high to the thigh; their men stand tall in black and white. Both genders display formidable hauteur.
The music of Tango has great passion. The dancers engage with elegance and reflect the music back to the audience. There are eight basic steps; each couple have controlled similarity but are not identical. I watched the delicious passion of the Enganche - a woman slides her thigh between her partner’s legs – and other movements such as Caricias, Lustrada and Piernazo which almost describe themselves.
The music, the dancers; this is seemingly real desire on public view.
Huddled in a corner I googled Tango classes in my home town. I’ll have to stop smoking before I join.
I’m really not sure what my wife will think – but next year, my current plan is that Moto Gelato will drift me eastward across the Continent dancing the Tango as I go.

The full story comprises
Dinner for One,
Of Ignominy and Shame,
The Italian job,
A Tale of Two Engines,
The Discreet Charm of Bruno Boivin and
The Tango Club of Chatelaine.

Notes from the Road Vol IV is available here

THE DISCREET CHARM OF BRUNO BOIVIN

Thu, 13 Oct 2016 11:37:58 +0300

“Hong Kong”, said the only custom motorcycle engineer in Eastern France who spoke English. “I learned to speak English in Hong Kong. I was there when you gave it away”

Thank God, I thought, for the ex-colonies and a man who spoke both engineering and English simultaneously.

I had made the mistake of breaking down at 11.30 a.m.
Everyone in France knows that 11.30 a.m is only 30 minutes before lunch.
And lunch is 12.00 to 14.00.
In the Argonne forest, which is where I apparently was, this is almost religion.

Thirty minutes is a very small window in which to effect an international rescue from an unknown – by me – motorway deep in rural France. But I called the RAC as I knew not the 11.30 rule; by pressing button three I was automatically transferred to the charming helpful people of the French recovery section.

“The motorway is owned by a private company” they helpfully explained. “So first you must call the emergency number and tell them where you are. They will send a transport affiliate to help remove your moto and we will organise everything from there. You must say Je suis pen. Like the pen. But ‘urry, it eez11.30”

So I called the emergency number and spoke English clearly with a French accent saying “I am the pen. But ‘urry it eez 11.30”

The response was “Allo? Allo?” and then a click as the phone was closed down.

I tried again, this time using the code words “je suis pen” in French, and was transferred to an English speaker. We established where I was by the simple expediency of tracking my mobile phone location. Fifteen minutes said my helper. And, true to form, a truck arrived in 15 minutes.

I tried to explain about coming to a stop with no power for the lights or instruments but the driver wasn’t really interested. “Lunch” he said, “in ten minutes. We drop zee bike, you go to lunch, come back at two.” Bike loaded, we exit the petrol station to which I pushed the motorcycle when it failed on the toll paying motorway. We exit through a service gateway onto a country lane – so at least I didn’t have to pay the exorbitant toll fee – and storm through the countryside to a small town with a large garage – cars, for the use of.

The driver was pleased, it was two minutes to twelve. He didn’t unload the bike… it was, after all, lunchtime. In the drive through the town he pointed out three restaurants. “Go” he said, “eat”

I headed to a small museum to waste a couple of hours. I’d hardly walked over the portal when a charming young man approached and said “Sorry, we are closed for the lunch”

Well, at some point you have to go with the flow. So flow I did to the boulangerie and bought a kind of pastie stuffed with a rough chopped country paté with coffee to go. I tried to pay. “No money Monsieur” said the sales assistant and pointed to a kind of ATM with blue flashing lights. I fed cash in, it fed coins out. I learned later that this was so the assistant could handle food, but not touch dirty money. Obviously a great IT salesman was covering this area.

The pastie paté was delicious. Under a clear blue sky I strolled round the town eating whilst admiring the human sized Empire style buildings. No building was more than three stories high, the streets narrow, doors with paint faded and no people. All, presumably, at lunch.

Fourteen hundred hours, back at the garage. The manager had looked at the bike, now on the concrete pad outside of the recovery and repair area. After typing importantly and then speaking to other customers who were not even in the queue of one that I had started, he looked at me and spoke in a language I did not understand. The upshot, it appeared, was that without even a diagnosis Moto Gelato was to be transported to the nearest Moto Guzzi Dealer… in Paris. “Because” he said with disdain “mon garage is not for moto”.

“Well whoopee do” I thought. Parisian Dealership mechanics are probably twice the price of London Dealerships. So an hour’s diagnosis would be in the region of £150 finest English pounds, let alone the over-valued Euro, the sneering at my own currency and the repair work still to be done.

To Google then. And, praise be, within a few moments Bruno Boivin entered my life as the owner of a Custom Motorcycle Tuning Shop and all round Motorcycle Engineer just seven kilometres distant.

Could he diagnose and repair an alternator problem? Maybe. Would he try? Sure! But no guarantees. I relayed this information to the marvellous in-country team at RAC. They confirmed Bruno was prepared to take on the challenge and organised the motor car garage to move, avec urgence, the moto to M. Bruno Boivin in Passevent deep in the forest of Argonne.

Onto the truck, and off we go. Bruno’s place of business is very discreet; no neon sign or hoarding to advertise his presence – merely a hand written note tacked on to a wooden door. “I prefer”, he said, “to remain anonymous”

The bike is de-trucked and wheeled into his garage to fit between various Harleys, a sweet MBK, some Japanese customs in the process of renewed life as hipster speeders and a couple of enduros. On the walls are shining motorcycle parts, racks of tools, lengths of steel and tube. I spotted a lathe, some milling equipment, industrial sanders, pipe bending forms, welding equipment, a paint sprayer; a man who knew his business and like to do things for his customers by using all of his skills and knowledge.

Meantime, relying on my own deep technical knowledge of all things alternator, and more especially the warnings from good friends in Poland that rotor had almost given up it’s life, I explained to Bruno that speed dials on Gelato had been flickering between 30 mph and 140 mph whilst cruising to an unwanted stop. Plus the lights would not switch on and Moto would not start.

“Probably le thingy” he said with a French accent. Now here was a man I understood.

The alternator cover was removed and… “You have a loose wire” Praise be to every single god of the road! Not a trip to Paris or expensive OEM parts. A minute or two of excellent skill displayed soldering the errant wire. Bike started with the help of additional battery, battery shown to be charging… Alors! Onward!

Except both Bruno and I agreed that perhaps the battery should be charged overnight. Bruno suggested the bar in the village where rooms were to be had just as the RAC called and said we have found you a hotel for the night and a hire car in which you can drive home to England. “No matter!” I cried, “I will stay in the forest and save you corporate money”

Ms. RAC, with such a lovely voice and immense grace said “That is fine. Send us the hotel invoice and we will reimburse you”.

To the bar with Bruno – in a car with Mrs. Bruno and their charming daughter who came along to supervise – where a very smart room was found with shower en-suite and beers ordered up for the team. Well, coffee for me.

The bar was French traditional at it’s best. Cream décor, much polished wood; original seating from decades earlier, foaming beer, the smell and view of the kitchen. Locals sat on tall bar stools chatting companionably, a couple of them playing a vigorous game of mini football on a table straight from 1958. Bliss.

One last problem. I had no money. And no-one takes cards in this part of France.

My fine technical expertise solved this in a trice. I ran up a tab - a fine supper of goat cheese and fig with a piquant salad and the always wonderful French version of steak and frites; in the morning I paid surprisingly little to the ensemble via bank to bank on the Internet.

More of the morning. Woken by the baker delivering fresh bread and croissants; bottomless coffee pot waiting on the table and outside to skies deep blue and a warm sun shining.

The full story comprises

Dinner for One,
Of Ignominy and Shame,
The Italian job,
A Tale of Two Engines,
The Discreet Charm of Bruno Boivin and
The Tango Club of Chatelaine.

If you liked the story, check out the book. You can buy Notes From The Road Vol IV right here

#notesfromtheroadvoliv

Bruno Boivin, Custom Tuning Shop, Passavent en Argonne Call 0326608344.

Dominique & Rosafine, Au Relais de la Foret, Passavent en Argonne Call 0326603608

A TALE OF TWO ENGINES

Sat, 17 Sep 2016 12:46:55 +0300

A TALE OF TWO ENGINES

Regular readers will know that I blew up the engine of my Guzzi V7 café returning from Ukraine a month ago.

Since then Moto Gelato has been sitting with its entrails all over the floor at the Motoracer Garage and Coffee in Wroclaw, Poland. Well, I say that. Miloscz and his wife Beata are very tidy and the last pics I saw everything was looking shipshape and Bristol fashion.

For non-nautical readers shipshape and Bristol fashion is an allusion to my own Navy past and has little to do with this story other than that I do have some navigational skills – with and without and GPS; and quite possibly superior skills to the international courier companies.

To the story.

On the 23^rd of August I bought a used replacement engine on eBay from the highly reputable ArgentMoto based is Fasano Italy and requested they ship it to Wroclaw.

Which they said they would, except apparently the delivery tags got mixed up and the engine arrived two weeks later whilst I was driving my wife to Central London for emergency eye surgery.

I contacted Argent Moto by text from my phone which, inside the hospital, could not be recharged, saying, more or less “Thank you, but wrong country”. A silence ensued.

The following day an email’; We will collect the engine and send to Poland. Here is the tracking number”.

Very well, but I now had a further dimension with which to confuse and add time pressure. I had decided to participate in the “Distinguished Gentlemen’ Ride” not in London but Wroclaw, on the 25^th September. So three weeks for delivery and an engine removed and the new used one to replace. No problem – except Miloscz, an honest man, said… “Well, we will try but I cannot promise”

The engine sat in my hall for three days. Finally DHL arrive on Friday and take it away. I eagerly watch progress on DHL’s tracker over the next five days. Heathrow, Gatwick, Milan, Lyon, Milan, Heathrow.

A text is sent to Argentmoto. “Whaaaaaaa?” A reply is received. “we will retire tomorrow and deliver in 3 days.”

Hmmmm.

A new message from Argentmoto. “We have started a new engine. Here is the tracking code”. Confused but eager I look now at a Fedex Tracker. Rome, Somma, Charles de Gaulle, Cologne.

A sneak peak on DHL. Milan. Rome. Fasano.

To Fedex for the next 3 days. Cologne, again. Warsaw and then, on the 9^th of September… Hooray! Wroclaw!!!!

But the Motoracer Garage and Coffee is closed for staff holidays and only the owners are present of the premises. The upside is the replacement engine is four years younger than the original. With more horse, torque and less petrol per mile.

But will it fit? And by the 25^th?

The full story comprises
Dinner for One,
Of Ignominy and Shame,
The Italian job,
A Tale of Two Engines,
The Discreet Charm of Bruno Boivin and
The Tango Club of Chatelaine.

Notes from the Road Vol IV is available here

#notesfromtheroad