Happenings...
"The beatings will continue until morale improves..."
So, $wife went and bought herself a new bike. Apparently she's had the Gilera Cougar 125cc for long enough, and she wants a real bike.
It's a Harley Davidson 1987 Sportster 1200. With fat bob tanks.
Problem is, it was up in Dumfries. So, on Friday, she jumped on the train and headed up there - about four and a half hours. Got there, got the bike, no problems. Called me to say she was on her way back, and got in her gear and stuff. All the expected things. No big deal. That was about 3ish, give or take a bit.
Then I got a call about 7, or so, saying she'd lost a petrol cap - it's a fat bob, so it's got two tanks (I'm still unsure if you have to manually switch between them or what, but I keep meaning to ask...), and pulled into a services to get a replacement. Once she got off, she discovered she'd lost a bit more than that. Not only had the cap gone, but so had one of the highway legs (fold-down pegs for resting your feet on while you're cruising), and, more importantly, the rear tail light assembly. With the licence plate, somewhere in the preceeding 200 miles.
She'd called the AA, who'd said they'd have someone out there in an hour, as they have a policy of doing. An hour later, she called them to find out where he was, and apparently there was a big tailback from an accident, and the guy was caught in it. So they got someone else to head in... and he got stuck in the same tailback, on the other side of it.
Eventually, two and a half or three hours after she called, someone got there. In a van. He took one look, and said "Well, we can't fix that, so you've got to be retrieved." - which she'd said over the phone originally. So... back into the system, and wait another hour.
Eventually, the guy turned up. By this time, it was past 1am. And, because he'd driven as far as they're allowed to, he had to take a tachyo break. So, another 30-45 minutes. And, since it was so far (170 miles from home), they'd have to hand off, because he couldn't drive all that in one burst. So... they organised a hotel for her. And the guy drove her and the bike there. When they arrived, it was bucketing down, and when he got the bike off the truck, he dropped it, and bent the throttle grip.
Could not win for losing, that day.
So, by about 3am, she was ensconced in a hotel, crashing for the night - utterly knackered, and not yet home.
Come the next morning, she was up and waiting for the guy to turn up to drive her home, sometime between 9 and 11. Which, eventually, he did. He drove her part way, then offloaded her and her bike, and they got loaded onto yet another truck, and driven home.
Sheesh.
So, when she got here, the guy pulled the bike off the truck, and parked it. She promptly sat on it and started it up, to check it worked, prior to shifting it 50m down the road to where our house is - no space to park the truck outside our house, so... Boy, is the thing loud. And she had a very, very big grin on her face.
I think that makes it all worthwhile, don't you?
In other news, sparring yesterday was mucho fun. And lots of hard, hard work. And, since we went for L2 sparring (ie, no holds barred, and anyone can strike at any time - rather than the more structured alternating level one sparring), I ended up collecting a strike to the left of my jaw, although that mostly missed (in that I moved my head, so it hit, but didn't hurt), my left wrist, mostly padded, and one more to the top of my noggin. That one stung a bit - it was a typical double-strike, and while I caught the first one, I didn't see the second one coming.
So now my head hurts when I lift my eyebrow, although it's starting to come right.
Maybe next time I'll pay more attention. *grin*
Oh, and I swapped from my standard, heavy sparring taiaha to my light one. And then that cracked - it's not broken, but it's not fit for purpose. :-/ I shall have to strip it, remove all the parts I can recover, and possibly see about replacing it - possibly with something slightly heavier, possibly with the same, but with linseed oil. But we'll see.
All in all, an eventful weekend.
So, $wife went and bought herself a new bike. Apparently she's had the Gilera Cougar 125cc for long enough, and she wants a real bike.
It's a Harley Davidson 1987 Sportster 1200. With fat bob tanks.
Problem is, it was up in Dumfries. So, on Friday, she jumped on the train and headed up there - about four and a half hours. Got there, got the bike, no problems. Called me to say she was on her way back, and got in her gear and stuff. All the expected things. No big deal. That was about 3ish, give or take a bit.
Then I got a call about 7, or so, saying she'd lost a petrol cap - it's a fat bob, so it's got two tanks (I'm still unsure if you have to manually switch between them or what, but I keep meaning to ask...), and pulled into a services to get a replacement. Once she got off, she discovered she'd lost a bit more than that. Not only had the cap gone, but so had one of the highway legs (fold-down pegs for resting your feet on while you're cruising), and, more importantly, the rear tail light assembly. With the licence plate, somewhere in the preceeding 200 miles.
She'd called the AA, who'd said they'd have someone out there in an hour, as they have a policy of doing. An hour later, she called them to find out where he was, and apparently there was a big tailback from an accident, and the guy was caught in it. So they got someone else to head in... and he got stuck in the same tailback, on the other side of it.
Eventually, two and a half or three hours after she called, someone got there. In a van. He took one look, and said "Well, we can't fix that, so you've got to be retrieved." - which she'd said over the phone originally. So... back into the system, and wait another hour.
Eventually, the guy turned up. By this time, it was past 1am. And, because he'd driven as far as they're allowed to, he had to take a tachyo break. So, another 30-45 minutes. And, since it was so far (170 miles from home), they'd have to hand off, because he couldn't drive all that in one burst. So... they organised a hotel for her. And the guy drove her and the bike there. When they arrived, it was bucketing down, and when he got the bike off the truck, he dropped it, and bent the throttle grip.
Could not win for losing, that day.
So, by about 3am, she was ensconced in a hotel, crashing for the night - utterly knackered, and not yet home.
Come the next morning, she was up and waiting for the guy to turn up to drive her home, sometime between 9 and 11. Which, eventually, he did. He drove her part way, then offloaded her and her bike, and they got loaded onto yet another truck, and driven home.
Sheesh.
So, when she got here, the guy pulled the bike off the truck, and parked it. She promptly sat on it and started it up, to check it worked, prior to shifting it 50m down the road to where our house is - no space to park the truck outside our house, so... Boy, is the thing loud. And she had a very, very big grin on her face.
I think that makes it all worthwhile, don't you?
In other news, sparring yesterday was mucho fun. And lots of hard, hard work. And, since we went for L2 sparring (ie, no holds barred, and anyone can strike at any time - rather than the more structured alternating level one sparring), I ended up collecting a strike to the left of my jaw, although that mostly missed (in that I moved my head, so it hit, but didn't hurt), my left wrist, mostly padded, and one more to the top of my noggin. That one stung a bit - it was a typical double-strike, and while I caught the first one, I didn't see the second one coming.
So now my head hurts when I lift my eyebrow, although it's starting to come right.
Maybe next time I'll pay more attention. *grin*
Oh, and I swapped from my standard, heavy sparring taiaha to my light one. And then that cracked - it's not broken, but it's not fit for purpose. :-/ I shall have to strip it, remove all the parts I can recover, and possibly see about replacing it - possibly with something slightly heavier, possibly with the same, but with linseed oil. But we'll see.
All in all, an eventful weekend.