Today I met up with some of the Oxford-based motorcycle group that I hooked up with via the internet.
The plan was for the half-dozen of us to meet at the Pear Tree services just outside Oxford, then head to a cafe on the edge of Salisbury Plain.
We didn’t make it.
Just south of Hungerford one of the bikes picked up a nail in the rear tyre; instant flat.
We limped back in to Hungerford. One of the guys went off and got some of that emergency puncture repair compound and the flat was reinflated.
We made lots of phone calls to find a motorcycle tyre specialist who could fit one today.
You won’t believe how many motorcycle tyre fitters don’t actually carry stock. It seems most of them order stock in for ‘next day fitting’.
I managed to get hold of Probike in Newbury who said they had a stock and they could fit a replacement right away.
Because we didn’t know where in Newbury Probike was (and also didn’t know our way around Newbury), I fired up the SatNav on my phone, plugged it in to my ears and – cautiously – off we set.
The SatNav did the trick and we arrived at Probike within 20 minutes.
While the tyre was being fitted we found a place for a drink and a sandwich. There was talk and good-natured piss-taking.
Because all the faff had taken so long, we abandoned the original plan and headed back to Oxfordshire, across country, and stopped at H Cafe for more drinks.
While we were there we met a guy who described his pillion passenger as a total bitch.
Here is a photograph of her:
Amazing!
I left the others at the cafe, and cut back home on the A415 via Abingdon.
The standard of driving – you know, appalling and getting worse – is even more dire when your view is from two wheels.
There are people out there, people controlling motorised vehicles, people who should not be in charge of a pencil sharpener, let alone in charge of a two-ton killing machine.
Can we have compulsory retests please? Every five years?
This is why I never learnt to drive: too dangerous! The world is a safer place with me as a taxi queen.