Do you remember your first time?

It felt slightly dirty, a little bit taboo and then it made me squeal with ecstasy, the chap who took my cherry chatted to me for a while as the heat of excitement dissipated and then we did it again. 

Yeah, my first ever ride on a bike was with a dear friend of mine on the back of his CB250 Super Dream. The bike was slow, heavy and under powered, but it was a bike and we were free to ride where ever we wanted. We clocked up hundreds of miles and even attended a rally together. That was nearly twenty years ago and I had forgotten about it until very recently.

What reminded me was something that happened to me on Friday, or rather happened to some one else with me. I was working in a small town near Bristol and took a ride over on the SV due to the Yam still being a paper weight in the garage.

The support worker I was teamed with on this day was a young woman called Rosie, just into her twenties and she is lovely, very gentle and brilliant with our lad. However, upon telling her that I was going to offer her a lift home, she squealed and danced around the house, which made our lad smile and laugh, before giving her a hug.

So at the end of our day, having enjoyed some great art and even some cooking, Rosie started to get ready to go. I gave her some spare gear that I had brought with me, which only just fitted her due to me being tall and chubby and her being shorter and a lot thinner, the joy of age and then we were ready to go.

Now I am not averse to nubile young women holding onto me, but I will admit that this was cool for a different reason. She giggled and laughed as she got comfortable on the pillion pad before I pressed the go buttons. I swear to you that she screamed all the way down the drive way and giggled all the way to the first turn. I was being very gentle and was giving her time to get used to how a bike feels. All I could hear was excited giggling as we gently headed up the road.

Our first stop was where she phoned the home of her next client. she told them to look out for her on my bike. The client was not amused, she wanted a go on the bike too! So we headed off into the hills and made our way to the clients house. At one point we entered a section of road that has national speed limit signs and the car in front of us was travelling at barely 40. It just required a little over take and so I nipped out and back in again making progress past the slow moving car. My friend on the back was giggling and whooping as we ambled past.

Finally we arrived at the clients house, a young woman who we both know well and really enjoy working with. Technically I was finished for the day, Rosie was about to start a night shift, but just going back home seemed boring. Our clients was a little jealous of Rosie because she has been desperate for a ride on the bike ever since she first met me, how could I refuse?

Working with adults who have learning difficulties and physical disabilities is both very challenging and very rewarding work, but it is work I really enjoy. My friend and I helped our client put on her bike gear and checked her new helmet before going outside and starting the bike. She climbed on the back and we both made sure that she knew how to tell me to stop if she needed to get off. Then I pulled away and very gently performed a full circle on the road outside her house, thank the town planner for the extra wide vehicle turning area.

My new pillion hugged me tightly from behind and was looking over my right shoulder to see where we were going, I knew that she was a little scared, but she would never show it to her housemate or us support workers. So at gentle pace we set off for a short ride around town. She loved it. As we were coming home and coming across the motorway fly over, we watched a black unmarked Police Car, come racing up the slip way with blue flashing lights and tare off in pursuit of a badly driven Landrover Disco!

Once back home our client jumped off, she was in a completely different mood to the quiet, with drawn mood that we found her in. Her face was all smiles, she was bouncing along and filled with joy, just like my friend Rosie. Two very different women, with very different places in the world, now joined in a common experience of adventure.

Rosie will be having a lift again when we work together next, she loved the bike and maybe one day she will get a bike of her own. Our client though is another story, she will never be allowed to ride her own bike on the roads due to her disability, but I do not see why this should stop her having fun. So once we hit summer and the local bike nights start up again, I will be picking her up and bringing her over, so she can have a proper ride out, she can see lots of other bikes and she can meet other bikers. I know that she wants to do this and I know that she is hugely excited by the idea.

Damn, I love my job and I love riding my bike, I love it even more when the two things are combined. So folks, if any of you happen to bump into me at a bike event and I have a young woman in my care, don't be shy or dismissive of her because of her disability, she is just as much a biker as the rest of us.

I looked at him as he looked at me and it was awesome!

Busy day today, started off with a bang too! My lovely hand built desk top computer farted and died today, shutting down and staying shut down, no matter how many time I impotently prodded the big black ON button. The power supply had failed, or more accurately, the cooling fan in the power supply had failed, quickly followed by the rest of the unit!

Luckily for me, my fair lady wife to be, Carol has a real interest in IT and Computers that has also included building her own PCs and she still had some stuff left over, including a battered and rusty looking PSU. After much faffing and a considerable amount of swearing, the old PSU was removed and the new one installed. It was only after the case was back together and everything wired back up that I noticed that I had lost my engagement ring! Luckily it had come off while looting the computer store cupboard and was sat under said cupboard, in the dust. However it took thirty minutes of my frantic searching before I found this to be the case.

So after fixing the computer, finding my precious ring I then settling down to listen to Total Biker FM, a really cool internet radio station that Carol found recently that has even played some of her music on air, to great critical acclaim. This peace and quiet was to be short lived because Carol phoned and offered to meet me for a picnic in Bristol. So, pulling on the bike gear, I shut down the newly fixed computer and headed over to garage to get my second favourite girl, Sylvie out for a blast to Bristol.

The ride to Bristol was lovely, all A roads and before I knew it, I was in the city centre, heading towards Clifton and my Darling wife. I thought I was doing well, I had last ridden a bike here in 2001, but had been a mountain bike and yet I still managed to get to where I wanted to be today. Over looking Sea Walls, on Clifton Down.

Carol pulled up with in seconds of my parking up and we shared a quick kiss. I think that I am lucky, I am engaged to a beautiful woman who positively encourages me to ride motorbikes. Our picnic consisted of a ham roll and a bag of onion rings, while a large blue shark swam by in the sky above us!

Yes, you did read that right and no, we had not taken drugs! As we sat on the grass enjoying our food and just basking in each others company, a large kite in the shape of a shark took to the air behind us and proceeded to swim in the breeze. It was a beautiful thing to see and it looked like a real shark in its movements as well as its shape and colour. To put it simply, what a fantastic kite.

As quickly as we had met, it was time to go and Carol and I parted ways once more, as I headed over to Filton and the UWE campus to meet my friend Stu. Regular readers may well remember Stu, the young gentleman with a similar bike to me, albeit with a noisy exhaust and a dark blue paint job. Stu very kindly agreed to meet me and we headed back to his for a cool drink and a chat, before the real fun started, fun that has left me with a decidedly sore bottom!

Yay... It was ride out time and Stu had a wicked ride in mind. a quick blast up the M4 towards the A46 was just enough to get us in the mood for a play on the roads. We followed to the A46 away from Bath and along some pretty amazing roads, eating up the miles as the fast roads allowed, sweeping corners, blinding bends and awesome straights that allowed great views to over take slower moving cars and tractors. As always, Stu was a real gentleman and always made sure that I could keep up, pulling in to allow me to catch up if we got separated by traffic. We followed the road for miles, passing through villages until eventually we reached a large town and finally Stu's Mum's house.

Now I am not sure what Stu's Mum made of me, I am after all a rather tall, slightly odd, motorcycling lesbian, dressed in Combat trousers with a pink and black Bike jacket. Hardly the sort of person you want your baby boy bringing home to meet the folks, but she was very friendly and was soon chatting. Stu is the apple of his Mum's eye and she is obviously proud of her boy, which is a really lovely thing to see, especially when he is a black metal loving, motorcycling monster! Just like me in fact...

The ride back home was quick and great fun. Dropping on to the motorway and blasting up the almost empty road was a wonderful life affirming experience that I will never forget, riding a restricted V-Twin means that I will never get the silly speeds that an equivalent sized In-Line Four engine produces, but this was not about speed, this was about companionship and enjoying a moment with a mate. I pulled ahead slightly for a moment and took a turn off so that I could adjust my hair and sort out my music player. At that moment an old guy, with a beard down to his groin, pulled up on his Harley. Seeing two bikers stopped in a layby was enough for him to check that we were OK and our enthusiastic smiles and welcome reassured him that we were fine. Not two minutes passed before chap in a Landrover pulled over to check that we were OK and once again we laughed and told him that we were just taking a rest. There is something wonderful about the biker community that makes complete strangers care for each other just because we share a common passion, a love of motorcycles.

The final blast together was what I can only describe as one of life's beautiful moments, I was in the middle lane and pushing motorway speed, Stu was just behind and then he pulled out and drew up next to me on the nearly empty road. Riding along like that, looking over and seeing my friend was a moment that will stay with me forever. Our wheels were a blur on the road, our engines were singing with a V-Twin harmony and our dark visors kept out the perfect evening sunshine. Human beings and machines, fused into a living, breathing, dancing symbiosis. It truly was a beautiful moment and one that I am thankful to my young friend for sharing with me. We rode like that for a couple of miles, over taking the slow moving heavy goods vehicles and the occasional car. I looked at him just as he looked at me and it was awesome! It was not the speed of it, but the harmony of moving together, the shared moment of our passion of riding motor bikes. It was a moment I will treasure, along with many others from my motorcycling adventures.

However upon getting home, the ache in my bottom from that saddle was enough to have me walking like John Wayne after a gallop across the desert. Note to self, must buy a new saddle and soon!

Thanks to Carol and Stu for making an otherwise humdrum day into a day that I shall always remember, for a picnic with a beautiful woman and a ride with a good friend. Today I was blessed.

Bike Night with Carley

Where to begin with this new entry to our world of Blogging.

Well first of all, welcome dear readers, thank you for showing interest in our little lives and do please leave comments on our blog if you want to, nice ones will be cherished and if any one compares us to Hitler, well we can live with that too. We are big and hard after all.

Two adventures for you this month, one by Bike and one by Car.

Weston Bike night again this week and sadly Carol was working and I was stuck at home packing for our Devon trip. However, a new friend to us, the delightful Carley, has recently been very poorly and has spent some time in Hospital, luckily she is mending now and is almost ready to get back on her bike and get on with passing her big bike test. Carley is also quite brave and agreed to a trip out on the back of Sylvie before pulling up on the sea front for Bike night. Now as you can imagine, with me on the front and Carol in work, this was going to be an interesting trip.

Getting her ready

The first thing to do was find her and we agreed a pick up point close to somewhere I could actually find. Sure enough, she was there and I got a little lost and then stuck in traffic. However, the engine roar was appreciated as we pulled up and Carley and Sylvie got to know each other. Once geared up and with the bike intercom in place, we set off and I promptly took a wrong turn and ended up in the Car park for McDonalds! I quickly found a way out and headed the right way and towards the motorway.

Carley had not been on the motorway before and also going on the back of the SV for the first time was a bit of a new experience too. Unfortunately the cross winds were horrible and on one occasion the gust was so strong it blew us across our lane and almost in the next. It was only the use of counter steering and black magic that stopped us, the black magic being the grip from out excellent tyres on the road.

We took the exit for Brent Knoll and turned on to the main road to head back towards Weston, slowing some what for the heavy traffic. The whole journey felt to me to be slow and stop start traffic, we managed to filter past some slow moving cars and eventually made it to the faster sections of road before taking the roundabout turning onto the A370 to Weston. Here the road speeds up for about two hundred metres before dropping back to a forty zone. The Speed camera has finally been removed, but road conditions were making it a slow twenty five to thirty miles per hour speed limit. Once the road opened up, we blasted out and past a line of slow moving cars to catch up the one that was going thirty in a national speed limit (if that was you driving like that, you are rude and dangerous) and shot past into a nice big gap, closely followed by a 900 Hornet.

A quick blast at sixty brought us close to home again and sadly the traffic started to bunch up again as we enter a fifty zone, the Hornet behind us was trying to get past us, but we in turn we stopped by oncoming cars and trucks. Eventually he saw a gap that his bike could make, but Sylvie in restricted two up mode would struggle with. He shot past and pulled in three cars ahead to avoid a truck, before slowly skipping one car at a time homewards.

I throttled off a little and just enjoyed a pootle, although the wind gusts were so strong that I had to keep on correcting our road position. Finally we passed the Weston sign and the Blue Hornet was still in sight just ahead. It looked like he too was heading to Bike night. Cruising down the sea front with a laughing Carley on the back is one of the coolest things I have ever done, giving some one else the ability to enjoy bikes just by taking them for a ride out is a brilliant thing to do.

We pulled up and paid our pound towards the Royal British Legion, a charity that cares for ex British forces troops, so it is a pound well spent. The Sea front was filling up rapidly with bikes and we weaved our way through the crowd to a parking spot, before stripping off the hot and humid bike gear and going for a wander to see who had turned up.

Bikes continued to pour into the parking area and it looked like there were hundreds, if not thousands of bikers and bikes. As we wandered a local Council worker tried in vain to communicate with us, but being a local and having several missing teeth, she found using language a bit of a struggle. As it turned out she was concerned about why there were a lot of bikes turning up and parking on the Sea Front, so we just smiled and left her to her cursing.

After a while the wind dropped and the heat started to disperse, leaving Carley and I with a wish to sit down and watch the world of bikes pass us by. Carley kindly bought me a cuppa and we sat and talked bikes for a while before going for one last wander around. By this time, the line of bikes was three time longer than it had been on our arrival and it was also parked up in four rows. This was a lot of bikes and even a few trikes. As always, the unbaffled exhausts of the Harleys sounded mean and aggressive, but just managed to “put put” through the crowd to the road way and river barge turn onto the road. It saddens me that a bike with three or more times the capacity of my little Sylvie can actually produce only slightly more that her restricted engine.

We geared up and Carley started Sylvie who purred into life, a passer by remarked that she was “just an old SV”, yet he was a passer by who did not know her well. She may well be the first of the pointies, but she has the heart and soul of a lioness, proud and ferocious. Even with her quiet pipe, she sounds lovely and that is how I want to keep her for now.

We weaved through the crowd towards the road, people stepping out of our way as I practiced my slow control, only one guy failed to notice us, but the small child he was pushing into our path sure did. Come on parents, if you are a holiday maker and you are walking through a crowd of bikers, don’t push you kids about with out looking, they might get squashed!

The road to Kewstoke takes in the Sea front and it is finally open, at last. We blasted along and looked so cool, the gentle sea breeze now nothing more aggressive than the occasional gentle gust and we entered the Toll Road. The sweeping curves would be awesome at speed, but the signs tell us that a lot of folks have had horrible, horrible accidents along there, so the limit is reduced to a snail like twenty five. Even at this speed Sylvie feels lovely though.

Passing through Kewstoke we were moving at a steady twenty five when a car pulled up to a junction, I watched the young girl driver look to her left and just pull out as we approached. She crossed our path and turned right, heading to where we had come. I pulled my brakes hard and Sylvie’s nose dived, her new repositioned horn let the girl know that we were not pleased at her dangerous move and I was livid. As she passed us by the girl looked at us and laughed. I despair at the state of the world when a driver can nearly cause an accident and think it is funny.

I dropped Carley off and turned Sylvie around, before opening her up and slipping the clutch slightly to get her roaring as I pulled away waving, Carley now safely home and ready for a restful evening.

The following morning was the next big adventure, a trip to North Devon and Hazel and Dom’s wedding…

To be continued.

Filtering or how I got there dead quick...

Just me today sadly, poor Carol had to go to work and I had a job interview in Bristol, so although she was not with me physically, she was with me in spirit and here is why.

I took Sylvie to Bristol this morning so I could get to my interview with a company called Mantra, this involved a quick dash up the M5 to Bristol, a quick skoot along the A4 and a sudden stop in a car Park in Baldwin Street. This was all undertaken before nine AM this morning and it was a pure joy to be up and riding at that time of the day. I wont lie to you and tell you that the roads were empty, because they really were not, but it was so cool, the day's heat had not yet risen and the sun was not yet at it's zenith.

Getting from the flat to the motorway was an unusual adventure for me in that I chose a route, found my way there and did not hit traffic until right up until the turning onto the A370. Once in the standstill traffic though, I just filtered slowly through. Carol taught me that to filter is a dangerous and cunning art form and I actually really enjoyed it. I got to the front of the traffic queue and turned onto the motorway.

Riding on the Motorway is not particularly exciting, it is windy, pretty straight and too fast to actually be fun. Riding B Roads at thirty to forty mile per hour is technically more demanding than riding on a motorway at motorway speed (I say motorway speed, because they are not always 70MPH) and considerably more fun to boot. I am still learning how Sylvie corners and to feel her dropping in on one side and then swooping over to the other is exhilarating and you do not need speed to feel that. Maybe this is because I am still learning how to ride her, but Sylvie at lower speeds is a beautiful bike to have control over.

The Motorway quickly gave up the miles to Sylvie's wheels and then the traffic bunched up, with the inside and second lane of the Avonmouth fly over being full of trucks. I managed to get into the second lane and saw my exit, but it was blocked by trucks who were nose to tail, there was barely enough room between them for a Rizla paper, let alone Sylvie and I. So we sailed past our Exit at the great speed of sixty eight miles per hour and headed up the road to the next exit to turn around. It added an extra four miles to our journey and only a few minutes.

The A4 was clogged from the outset for us and once again Sylvie's beautiful slow speed handling came to the forefront as we slowly  filtered through the traffic. Filtering is an art form and having followed Carol, I know that I still have a lot to learn. Today though I aced it and managed to filter slowly and surefootedly through the slow moving or still traffic. At one point I caught up with the ZZR600 that had over taken me on the entry to the A4 and kept pace with the Blue haired rider until I managed to pass them. Filtering is about confidence and taking an opportunity that exists for less than a second. Slipping through gently and with ease. I had one moment when I decided to let discretion be the better part of valour on the road going past "At Bristol", when a truck needed extra room to turn around a bus, but I soon passed the obstruction and was once again on my way.

Once into the centre of Bristol I headed around to Baldwin Street and found a Bike park with a nice steel railing to lock Sylvie too. I do not like the idea of leaving Sylvie unprotected in a busy city and so she had disk locks front and rear as well as a chain and a D-Lock. She also has her steering lock and her alarm just to keep filthy thieving hands away from her. Not sure I mentioned it, but I love my girl Sylvie.

Then came the interview. Forewarned is forearmed and Carol did some digging into Mantra Marketing for me, because she is good at stuff like that. The job advert I had applied for was looking for a Media Sales Executive, sounds posh does it not? The job they interviewed me for was selling door to door... You know those dodgy types who ring your door bell, then stick their foot in the door so that you cannot get rid of them, well that is the job. I was less than impressed. The sting comes in the pay packet, if you work really hard and walk an entire street, knocking on every door and get rebutted at every step. You earn nothing. If you find a little old lady at home and intimidate her into buying some rubbish she does not want, you earn fifteen pounds.

The people at the interview all have a similar look, keen, confused and young. Well except the guys who are obviously out of work sales men in their fifties. The woman interviewing me was hideously pretty, one of those people who should be beautiful, blonde, petite and with a big smile. I felt like I was swimming with a shark and a hungry one at that. She apologised to me for wasting my time and wished me bon voyage home. I left that odd place and was stopped outside by a young man who had the distinct hippy look to him. "Excuse me I am looking for the Krishna centre?" Oh yeah, the same office and phone number as Mantra... Scary.

I took Sylvie over to see a dear friend to Carol and I, a lovely chap and engineering genius known as Wayne.  Seeing him in the garden working his magic on his ZX10 project is a joy to watch, but today he was working on his Dad's Fazer 600. Yesterday he hit some thing big and hard in the road and damaged both wheels beyond repair. So he took them out, took off the disks and ordered new ones. It was a shame to see him looking so down. Luckily it is hard to keep a spirit like Wayne down and he was soon happily playing with Titanium bolts for his race bike.

The ride back to my beloved Carol was very nice and took in the road between Bristol and Clevedon, a lovely winding road with a forty limit, heaven in tarmac form. I had ridden this road a few days before, but had got stuck behind a large articulated lorry, which was in turn stuck behind a large old tractor. No chance of filtering past those two on that day. Today though the road was clear and swift. I did not hit the speed limit of because the corners are rather tight and with out knowing what is on the other side of them, I would hate to go flying round and find a traffic queue. However, I was still faster than anything else on the road and was only caught when the rode finally entered Clevedon itself and more traffic queues.

A quick blast down the motorway and I was soon in the arms of my beloved Carol. I was tired, I was aching from the ride and I was heart sore at being apart from her. My girl is beautiful and her smile is enough to make flowers want to blossom or birds want to soar. She was waiting for me and she treated me to the lunch of royalty, a Quarter pound cheese burger and chips. We sat together in the sunshine, holding hands and basking in each others love. Did I mention that I love my Girl?

In truth I love both of my girls, Carol is my life partner, my soul mate and my friend and Sylvie is our bike. With both of these gifts from the gods in my life, it is hard to be unhappy for long, even after a wasted interview.

The Surge and the Swell.

Today was one of those warm days, with just enough heat in the sunshine to make it perfect for riding, well perfect for me anyway. Carol was at work today, leaving me at home with a heart full of adventure and a tank full of unleaded. So after a morning of dealing with the officious bureaucracy that makes up the local Government there was nothing more appealing than a trip out.

Riding a sports bike is an art form and I am still only a learner, I may not be showing that big red L on the bottom of my number plate anymore, but these days I am more of a learner than I ever was. I am learning how to ride a 650 CC performance motorcycle smoothly and efficiently and it has it's moments that make my heart flutter with either fear or love.

The fear comes when the bike surges forwards, which is odd because the love comes when the bike surges forwards. Cruising through Weston today I discovered that a third gear roll on is an awesome feeling, although cruising is not the true word, I was heading up the A370, to the motorway when a chap in a red car decides to undertake me in the fifty zone. Ahead of him was a van and I knew that he would have to pull out to get past the van, but at our current speed, that would mean pushing me out of the way. Not being keen on the idea of being a road Pizza, I gave the throttle a gentle twist. Fifty miles an hour to sixty five and back down to fifty. The car and the van now far behind me, the smile on my face and that indefinable feeling in my heart. For that brief moment, I was speeding, but the guy about to undertake me was driving badly and putting me in danger. Back at the speed limit, I was pootling along nicely.

The drop on to the motorway involves another moment when the throttle is slowly opened and that exhaust note changes from a growl to a roar to a howl. Damn, I love the howl from my beautiful SV engine and to hold that note, I have to keep the throttle nicely open, the speedo reads between 68 and 71 and the traffic is sparse enough that I can just ride. The road to day soon started to fill with trucks and that just leaves the outside lane, the traffic blasting past is doing 85, I am happy to pootle at 70. The noise from my exhaust is a scream that rivals any of the darkest black metal I have, who needs music when you have a Sports V-Twin.

Clevedon is a quiet place, although the quiet was shattered by the roar of me turning up and heading for the sea front. Here once again came that gentle moment of the roll on, when the engine just pulls and screams its joyous heart out. Today I was heading along and the speed limit changed, however I was in slow traffic that suddenly cleared, the roll on from under twenty to forty in third gear is a gentle exercise in power and exhilaration. From a slow speed trundle to a blast in only a few metres and the pull from the bike pushing me into the foam of the saddle, the pegs into my boots and the feeling in my stomach that says I am doing something I truly love.

The Surge of power and the Swell in my heart are twins and when there is one, the other is the right there too. They are inseparable. With that gentle twist of the throttle, the power just builds, tsunami like, from deep with in and the bike feels like it wants to gallop, but if the bike gallops, so does my heart. It is not the speed that makes it. You can do this and maintain the speed limit, it is the surge I am looking for here, that feeling of the bike getting ready to unleash the gallop.

Carol was just about to finish work and I met her on the sea front, we parked up and watched the waves surge and swell back and forth. Even the sea knows what it feels like to gallop occasionally. Meeting Carol is a real pleasure, especially when she is about to finish work and we can head home together, she drives and I just hang back and follow on the SV. Once again we find a place where the traffic is suddenly light and the roll on comes out again and before we know it, we are rolling onto the motorway. This time the traffic was some what heavier and we spent a lot of time in the third lane before the sudden slow down for standing still traffic on the Weston turn off. I filter clear and head home, knowing that Carol was sat in traffic. Pulling up outside our flat, she is already parked up. She knows the back way home.

A quick change of clothes for Carol and I resume my place on the pillion pad, she rides that bike like it is a gentle pony, yet to me it feels like a stallion. We roll on down the hill and pull out onto the sea front, the traffic is light and we make it through to the lights. A familiar Scottish accent shouts out to me that I am being rather naughty, I should be riding on the front. This from the gentleman I met while out riding a while back. I know I laughed and there is why I love bikes. They make me smile, they bring me joy and us bikers, with our friendly nod to bikes going the other way, have out own club with it's own rules. Carol parked up on the Sea front in Weston, once again there were several hundred other bikers here and two we were sort of looking for. Another couple of lads from the SV forum came to say hello. These days on the sea front, it is just as likely that I am going to know some one as it is for Carol, all thanks to the Internet.

Rick and Dan were good lads and no one had a ticket today. Dan rode up from Plymouth just for the pleasure of Weston Sea Front, not sure that he will do that again after the rain, but there you go. Rick was a local and the four of us wandered along and chatted, Carol snapping photos when she could, holding my hand when she could. Was it really so recently that two women holding hands in that loving way were considered wrong? If anyone today thought it odd, they never said. I just held my girls hand and felt her love.

The ride back was a laugh, the guy on the Ducati that wanted a race was a bit silly to cut across the sand blown onto the road. With his full power crotch rocket, he pulled ahead and left us behind, only to promptly get stuck in traffic. Carol eased passed and with her usual grace eased her way to the front with no fuss. The looks on the faces of the Sports bike brigade was a mixture of cross indignation and the realisation that a girl had just shown them how to ride properly, my girl in fact. With a smile, we were gone, leaving Dan to head back to Plymouth and Rick following us for a cuppa.

Another wonderful day...