What?

Everything is going a bit mad here due to the fear of the Covid-19/ Cornona virus.

We’ve got idiots fighting in the aisles over toilet paper. We’ve got selfish, greedy, morons stripping the supermarkets bare of anything they can lay their hands on. People are actually stockpiling water! There is a tap in every house. I went into a spring water bottling plant yesterday, usually I’m in and out. I was there 3 hours queuing behind lorries. The guy said they usually send out about 40 loads, yesterday they were sending out 120.

The last time I saw a toilet roll on a shelf was a week ago. There were 3 packs of 4. Because I’m not a selfish, greedy, moron I took one of them.

On the plus side, it means we can get overtime again at work.

As we are now owned by Tesco, they’ve introduced a new policy. Staff can go and get their shopping from Tesco on a Sunday morning an hour before the store opens to the public. I’m going to try it out in the morning.  Other good news from work today is someone has just left so a full time vacancy has become available. I’ve reminded them I want to go back to full time, so hopefully I’ll get that. It’s Tuesday- Saturday,06.00hrs start. A bit earlier than I would have liked, but I’ll take it if they offer it to me.

More good news is that I dug out two partial packs of very early tomatoes that I bought a year ago and the year before that. I thought I’d give them a go. So far 24 out of the 25 have germinated! Yay! I’ve just moved them to the cold frame. I’ll just have to keep an eye out for frosts, but they should be OK.

After my Tesco’s shop tomorrow I’m going to give my VFR750 a wash and relist it. The temperature is rising, (slowly) and it’s stopped raining every single day, so maybe I’ll be able to sell it. I’m going to take a picture with a toilet roll on the bike to drive sales.

Talking of bikes, I got the other tail tidy so I could fit the top box. Then I realised I would have to butcher parts of the brand new plastics on the tail tidy to feed the arms of the rack through. Nothing is ever easy. It was a huge faff, and I had to keep undoing bits I’d already done to do the next bit, but I got it done.

Before:

After:

OK, so the box is ugly, but it’s very practical. And the tail tidy has removed all that ugly plate holder frame thing.

The box doesn’t look too bad from other angles. And I can’t see it when I’m on it.

The final thing I’m doing to it is swapping the handlebars to clubman bars. Which is to say, drop down handlebars so I’m not sat upright catching all the wind on the motorway.

It does everything I wanted. It handles great (and it should feel even better at cornering with proper bars) it feels fast and it slows me down. Perfect.

What I mean by that is some bikes you can be cruising along at 160mph and you just don’t feel like you’re going fast. You’re in the smooth air from the fairings, the bike isn’t straining, it is just a number on the clock. One that will get you very banned.

On this one you feel all the wind smashing into you, the engine is screaming (not in strained way, it just has a lovely howl) and you feel like you are going really, really fast. Then you look at the clock and you’re not even doing a ton. (Allegedly. So I’ve heard.)

I’ve not managed to run for a week. I’ve come down with some bug that leaves you feeling weak and tired. Meh. It’s not such a concern, as all three of my marathons have postponed until the autumn due to the plague.

There’s a strange duality about life at the moment. Hysterical panic buying, hoarding, people going into self isolation, versus mine and Wendy’s unchanged lives. Well, actually Wendy has had to endure trauma. Her hairdresser has self isolated for 3 months. I said I’d cut it, but she’s still not happy. And her church are stopping meetings.

Happily I’ve been practicing “social distancing” for many years and am so far ahead of the curve on the “avoiding physical contact” thing that I’m basically virus proof.

So that’s where I’m up to .

As Bob Dylan said “the only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on”

Stay safe, people.

Later,

Buck.