Last week has to be a fairly all time low.  Better half takes me to the train station. We decide I’ll not go to work on Monday as it’s Easter Monady and I can do the meetings from home anyway.  So we get the tickets for Wife and I (she was picking the Grandson up from the airport on the 31^st), then come home.

 

Day1: 4am up and back with the tickets.  I have changed my ticket to 05:06 on Tuesday so it’ll be up early tomorrow.

 

I complete some of the Ceiling work I’m doing with plasterboard and we have a fairly relaxing evening.

 

Day2:  Up at 3am, climb on the bike with the gear and head for the station.  Get about half way, start to lay the bike down for the 3^rd wet roundabout and the front wheel goes flying off down the road taking me and the rest of the bike with it.

 

Bastard, bastard, bastard.  To add insult to injury the sodding bike won’t start.

 

To cut a long story short, after discarding the totally destroyed bike suit and trying for an hour to get the bike going, I have to wake up the better half and yowl for help.  She picks me up and I finally warm up on the way to Poitiers to get jump leads.  Why?  Because the bloody jump starter is flat again even though it has never been used since it was last charged.  When we head off to Poitiers I see the line of Diesel fuel on the roundabout....  Did I mention that bikers hate truckers who overfill their fuel tanks?

 

So I get the jump leads and still nothing.  Eventually I determine that there is no spark.  I find a screwdriver kit in the boot of the car (thank god I put that here) and open up the (worse for wear) headlight enclosure.

 

I fiddle with all the wires and connections and get nothing but one short start.

 

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

 

In the end back inside the light casing and pull all the connector blocks out.  Magic, it runs.

 

So I put the lights back together whilst it’s running and aim to head off for a later train (I have a fully flexible ticket).

 

I decide to stop the bike and start it again just in case.  I turn the key off and, hey presto, the engine continues to run.  The kill switch won’t run either.

 

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

 

 

Back home.  Work from home.

 

Day 3:

 

Better half takes me to the train station for the 05:06 train and leaves me there, another 3am start.  There is no 05:06 train!  Bloody French, can’t you run a timetable?  Probably but not the one I want.

 

So I’m stuck waiting for the train, I go down onto the platform and get into one of the heated rest areas until the station opens.

 

When the station opens, I put my ticket into the machine to change it.  The machine eats it and then asks for my ticket.

 

I remonstrate with the train staff at the station, but they can do nothing.  I have to wait till the ticket office opens and the boss arrives.  07:30, after the second train and I’m not going to make it to work till after Lunch.

 

Sod it, can it get any worse?  Another €90 lost.

 

Get to work, go to the hotel and check in feeling the worse for wear.

 

Day4:

 

12 hours sleep.  Almost human.  Have a Cold.

 

OK which god’s daughter did I rape??????

 

Day5:

 

Work all day, back to the train station wife picks me up.  Cold is now out of control.

 

Day6:

 

Son is here with Girlfriend it looks good so we go out to Monkey Valley for the day.  I feel like crap, can’t stop coughing and sneezing.  My chest is beginning to hurt and my stomach muscles too.  Will this day never end?

 

Day7:

 

Recovery is at hand.  The cold is dying out.  Things are getting better.  It’s Monday tomorrow, time to get up at 04:30 and take a train again….

So I have a 26 year old honda 250 superdream.  I changed the engine for one with 8.5k miles on it and it has only done 4k miles since then.

 

It was getting a little noisy so I checked out the Haynes manual and did the requisite service interval tasks.  Seemed to work.  However it's been being a pain and getting slower by the week so I had a look at the balance shaft tensioner again.  I loosen the locking nut and, hey presto, nothing happens.

 

Hmm

 

So I look the manual up.  The bloody spring tensioner is buried righ inside the engine.

 

Bugger.

 

Looks like a spare engine but just about nobody wants to part with them except for silly money.

 

I think I'll have to send mum & dad to hull to pick up two £30 one's on offer.....

 

Ah well.