Try Again.

After declaring myself over the plague weakness last week I got it again the next day. I’ve been three days clear now. Ran for the last 5 days, with a beast of a run today, and I’m feeling fine. I really, really, hope that’s it.

My plan said an easy 17 miles today. I decided to up the ante a little and do 17 miles with hills. I’ve found a great hill. It’s 4 miles to get there, then laps of it to make up the extra miles. Plus we are in the middle of Storm Isha or something and it’s blowing a gale. All in all, a challenging run.

I got it done, it’s nearly 23.00 and I’m still fine on the plague weakness front. Surely that’s it for this bout?

I’ve fitted my top box to the bike, and tracked down a tyre place. Bromley tyres has shut down and it took Wendy and me an hour to track down someone who would supply and fit a motorbike tyre locally. Wigan was the nearest one. I popped my bike on centre stand and lashed the back end down to keep the front in the air.

Not ideal, but it’s not for long. As an aside, the bike was a joy to work on. Fresh grease, braided brake lines, cleaned out brake calipers, brand new brake pads, no rust. I think I’ve dropped lucky with this one. Low miles and lovingly looked after. Anyway, I left it dangling in the air and drove to Wigan. It wasn’t a tyre place it was a motorbike garage. They took the wheel off me and said “Are you picking it up today or tomorrow?”

The horror must have shown on my face. I explained I’d left my bike perched, thinking I was doing an ‘in and out’ tyre swap. They did it for me while I waited, but if they are the only place I’m going to have to make sure I arrange for them to be ready to do it immediately in future. The back tyre is equally old, but a potentially slippy back end isn’t too much of a problem, I’ll wait for it to wear down. If your front end goes out from under you that’s a whole different story. Usually you crash and it’s very expensive and often painful.

So top box and front tyre fitted, I’ve found some cheap handguards and heated grips, and I’ve got that suspension bracket to drop the back end down to standard height. The handguards should be arriving tomorrow. Then I just have to fit it all. Once the grips, handguards and suspension bracket is fitted that’s it. Just put petrol in and enjoy.

I might be using it in earnest shortly. I was going to apply for an agency job at Iceland but I’ve been putting it off because it’s a pay cut and an awful job. Very difficult stores to access, in the middle of high streets and such, and everything has to unloaded and loaded using a tail lift so only a few at a time. It’s a lot of physical graft and tough driving. And a pay cut. The only reason I was considering it was because it’s like Booker, the basic is OK, but you make all your money on overtime rate after 45 hours. And it’s paid breaks. On a 60 hour week I think it was only £100 or so different from what I’d get here. And I’ve not had a 60 hour week here for about 2 years.

I was still screwing up my mojo to reply to the Iceland agency advert when I saw an advert today for petrol tanker driver out of Manchester. About the same money I’m currently on, full training given. Loads of reviews saying “this is a great agency, trained me, got me into tankers”. Exactly what I want. I’ve applied. The VFR will be the ideal transport if I have to commute to Manchester. As soon as I applied I got anxiety. But any new thing is a bit anxiety provoking. I seem to be better now. If I can get into tankers we could be minted.

Later,

Buck.