I set the wheels in motion

Doing the rounds of late is yet another meme, with the following rules: Pick up your nearest book and go to page 123. Find the fifth sentence (not the fourth?), and post on your blog the next three (not five?…) sentences. Acknowledge who tagged you, and then tag five more people. Thus:

And where were the new maps I had been promised? Here were the same crude line-drawn maps I had made myself, on my computer, back in 1996. And why was the section title, "White Man, Where You Going?" (a quote from an African in the story) changed to "White Man, Where Are You Going?"

from Roadshow: Landscape with Drums, A Concert Tour by Motorcycle by Neil Peart.

Considering the last and spectacularly unsuccessful time I tried following on an Internet meme—with only one person, Emma, actually responding in kind—I'm not going to point my finger at anyone this time.

It's not entirely coincidental that Peart's book was the nearest to hand, especially since it's my current read, and well worth it. But this past week I've been ultra-focussed, to the point where I've not read my book, I've not listened to the radio, I've watched barely any television, written next to no e-mails, and done no cycling. I was across town all week doing my Direct Access motorbike training.

A couple of weeks before, I had taken the morning off work and bussed it into town to take my motorbike theory test, for which I had been revising at full-tilt. Back when I was learning to drive a car, the theory test was quite a new thing and it was done like any regular exam with a paper booklet and 35 multiple choice questions. I disposed of that one in ten minutes. This time around it's all gone modern and hi-tech with 50 questions followed by 14 video clips of developing hazards, all done via a computer touchscreen or clicking the mouse. I disposed of the questions efficiently once more, and comprehensively passed the hazard perception. I scored lower than I expected though, possibly because I'm so switched on to road behaviour that sometimes I spotted hazards too early for the computer software's "identification period". Early is good; late might mean an expensive crash, or worse. With certificate in hand I bussed it over to the motorbike training school for an hour's basic riding assessment, a session where would-be students can get a feel for sitting on a bike, working the controls and performing some very basic manoeuvres. The learner bikes were very small and I was perched on the seat without much difficulty, save for my knees which were somewhere around the top of the petrol tank! Of course, I'd been thinking about learning for some time and with my brother and Dad already bike riders, and armed with half a dozen magazines, I was familiar with how it worked. I'd even sat myself in my bedroom, helmet and gloves on, making 'yin yin' noises and imagining how to work the throttle and change gear. On the day, it came together reasonably quickly. I was ok balancing the bike although the tarmac training area was a bit bumpy with some small stones which threw the front wheel a little bit, and I was grabbing the clutch lever and front brake lever sometimes instead of using my right foot and right hand. But the hour was enough to convince me that I felt I had what it would take to do the proper training, and with that I bussed it back to work.

So on Monday, with a week's leave in hand, I drove down to the training school to start the process; I wasn't going to take the bus again after the disastrous journey across town to my work which had left me about to be sick, and unwell for the next three days. There were four of us on the first day, all ready to sit our Compulsory Basic Training, which is the legal minimum to riding on the road. It was a succession of lectures, covering everything from How It Works, to why alcohol might be a bad thing, to what helmet to wear, and bike riding in the yard. Starting and stopping, doing U-turns, riding a figure of eight around traffic cones, learning how to indicate and look on the approach to junctions, where the blindspots were and how to check them. In the afternoon it was our first venture onto the roads and into the local housing area where the roads were quiet. It turned out that only one other student, Al, was doing the whole five days in one go and I struck up a good rapport with him. Riding in convoy with the instructor sometimes at the lead, sometimes in the middle, sometimes tailing us, and all the while in radio contact with us, it was both fun and incredibly tiring. Three of us already had driving licences and were fairly road-savvy but all of us were beginners. At the end, I was informed that I had passed my CBT and was ready to move forwards. I left the school in the evening feeling very tired and I still had to go shopping before having tea.

Coming back the next day I was a feeling more relaxed, safe in the knowledge that I wasn't starting from scratch now and knowing I could work the bike without falling off or crashing into cars. There were two ladies joining Al and me that day, both of whom had obviously done some riding before, and it was a nice change from being in amongst big muckle guys with stubbly faces. The instructors suggested I ride one of the newer, slightly taller learner bikes, still 125cc and only about 13hp, but as I quickly discovered when doing some circuits and manoeuvres in the yard, better balanced and smoother to ride, and generally a bit nicer all round. So with Fred, our cheerful, chain-smoking instructor in the pack, we headed out onto the roads again to try mixing it in traffic. You have to jump in, if not at the deep end then somewhere around the middle, each day in order to progress to test standard within a week, and the middle of town was definitely a deep end! We encountered potholes, roundabouts, cobbles, bad drivers, buses, roadworks and traffic lights, probably all before lunchtime. One problem I was having time and again was forgetting to switch off my indicators after a turn; on a motorbike they aren't self-cancelling. We also visited a petrol station to refuel, went back into town a second time and explored some of the eastern side of Edinburgh and out towards Musselburgh to see the new Driving Standards Agency building and training ground - our potential destination. Both Al and I noted at the end of the day how less tired we felt, and we had done a lot of riding. If I'd had the presence of mind, I might have noted the odometer reading to see just how far.

Day three was another deep end: the big bikes. Direct Access is an intensive route to obtaining one's unlimited licence and involves riding a machine over 500cc with more than about 35hp, and on which one sits the test. Along with the scary powerful bikes, we had a new instructor, Matt, whose attitude I liked a lot. Still jovial, but slightly harder-edged and very committed to getting the best out of us. It was a day of exploring the various routes that we might find ourselves riding on the test and taking the bikes on faster roads. We'd already been up to 50mph on the learner bikes and that had been a shock - the windblast, the sheer exposure - and now we had to practice 60-70mph on bikes which accelerated. Again we practiced U-turns, both on foot and riding, emergency stops (now 'controlled stops') and hill starts, and took the bikes through mid-afternoon clag ups. To my frustration I was still leaving my indicators on, while Al wasn't, but in my favour I seemed to be a little happier turning in the road than he was.

I had another shock on Thursday when I was told that I was going to be riding a bigger again bike, a Yamaha FZ6: 600cc and 98hp...! Apparently one of the fleet had become damaged and wasn't available, and when I asked if it was simply luck of the draw, both Tricia and Matt told me that in their opinion I had the greater potential for a bike like that. They were also considering using them as the big bikes for the training and I was the guinea pig. So as well as having a big black bike to ride, they wanted my feedback afterwards on whether the machine would be suitable. Having gone from two cylinders to four, from carburettors to fuel injection, and small disc brakes to big ones, the bike felt huge underneath me. But it was a spine-tingling and satisfying huge, with my knees hugging the fat petrol tank. I practiced again in the yard before we went out for the day, feeling the clutch bite and trying out the brakes and seeing how the bike felt in tight turns. And then it was onto the roads and more of the same exploration of back roads and changing speed limits, and a few blasts up and down and into the city. When I wound on throttle, the bike built up speed almost recklessly and I had no trouble keeping up with the other traffic. Our route for the morning was as much experience of all kinds of roads as an excuse to stop by all the motorcycle shops in Edinburgh, most of which I'd visited before as a prospective biker. It was during our ride back to the training school, heading through the middle of the city just after lunchtime, that "all the dominoes have just fallen into place." As I led Matt and Al, picking our way along Royal Park Terrace between all the parked cars, I caught up a car waiting for an oncoming car. I'd simply slowed right down, ready to stop, but the car moved off and I carried on to the next roundabout and onwards. I'd thought little of it at the time but Matt thought differently. "That was some of the best slow speed riding I've ever seen from a student! You were going about an inch a second, no foot down, no brake light!" And Al was similarly pleased for me, saying that he could see why they'd put me on the bigger bike rather than him. I had the biggest grin on my face that evening.

We had both been making solid progress through the week and Matt was honest in his appraisal of our riding, saying we were both well skilled already and thinking much more about where we placed our bikes on the road and much less about operating them. I had developed a slight tendency to grab too much throttle while using the clutch, but at least I wasn't leaving my indicators on anymore. During a motorbike test one is allowed up to three of any specific type of minor fault: hesitating, missing an observation or whatever, to a maximum of 16 faults; leaving indicators on too long, especially if one has later passed a side road, means an instant failure. There were some tricks we could use to remember that sort of thing; saying to oneself, such as "indicator, indicator, indicator, indicator", or more forcefully, "I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot, I'm an idiot"; Al's preferred mantra was "Bastard, bastard, bastard". I invented no such phrase, preferring to periodically glance at the handy green flashing lamp on the handlebars. On the black bike it was easy to spot. And on day five, all the nerves appeared. I'd had a look on my map to find out where the Test Centre was located, because I know some parts of Edinburgh and its environs rather less well than others. I had also looked at the published test route itineraries from the DSA to get an appreciation of what roads might be involved, out of any of the ten possible routes. We spent the morning doing more manoeuvres, more roundabouts, studying the speed limits on certain roads and the timings of bus lanes, then headed back to the training school for lunch. Al wasn't hungry at all, and I could only manage one sandwich and half a biscuit. It had been a monotone, dull sort of morning but the weather was brightening and warming up so I drank some water and fiddled with the vents on my helmet for more airflow. Before long, it was time for us to ride to the Test Centre; Matt and I left our bikes in the little parking bay while Al, whose test was first, parked next to the gargantuan white Honda Pan European of the examiner. I hovered around to refresh my mind on how to check tyre tread depths and oil levels while Matt took my counterpart into the breach, reappearing after a little while. Since the test takes about 40 minutes altogether, we rode back to the school to collect another student who was sitting the test for his A2 Restricted licence, and then rode back once more. I parked my bike next to the big Honda which had obviously only just arrived back, and we waited for Al to come out. I was feeling terribly jumpy, and doing my best to stand stock still and concentrate on taking deep slow breaths. When the door of the Test Centre opened, I saw Al emerge and just from his body language immediately suspected the worst, his head hanging ever so slightly and his walk measured and unhurried. "Sorry guys", was all he said for a while.

Matt took the driving report sheet from Al and cast an eye over the ticks; "You only had five faults, and then it was the indicators." Al replied, "When I heard the guy say, 'Pull up at the side of the road whenever it's safe to do so, and switch off the ignition.', I knew I'd messed up." He was bitterly disappointed, that he had let down Matt and me, and himself. "Oh, Al..." I said and I put my arm around him.

But he brightened up after a few minutes, saying that he hadn't lost anything, and would take another test as soon as he could. Time was getting on, I was getting quite warm in my heavy jacket, and it was my turn to face the music. Al gave me a big 'riding buddy' handshake and said simply, "Go for it." I quickly discovered that the Test Centre was completely custom designed to accommodate the different needs of car drivers and motorcyclists; while the waiting room for the former was full of upholstered seats and nice carpets, the room for us was air-conditioned (because of our need for warm, armoured clothes), and it had plastic chairs and a linoleum floor (because we might be sopping wet). Steve the Pan European came in, all six foot four of him, he smiled and shook my hand, and we spent a couple of minutes going through the paperwork of my driving licence and CBT certificate. I put on my intercom and helmet, and we headed out into the sunshine.

He asked me a couple of questions about maintenance, which I answered easily enough, and then he reviewed how he would tell me which direction to go. If he said nothing, I was to simply ride straight on; otherwise, do what he asked. So I kicked the bike into first gear and into my test. The traffic was fairly heavy, being mid-afternoon and the route taking me into Musselburgh's back roads, most of which I knew well by now. I did my U-turn on foot, rueing the weight of my bike and my lack of arm strength, and then rode the bike around again. I did my controlled stop, remembering what Matt had suggested about using the powerful back brake only a fraction and letting the front brake do the work. We rode out of town through some more housing streets, with which I wasn't familar at all (arguably a good thing for staying alert), doing my hill start on the A6124, and into the 60mph section where I happily grabbed some throttle to show I wasn't afraid of 'making progress'. I became confused at one point after a roundabout because for some reason I didn't know what the speed limit was; I thought back to the previous road and decided that since I hadn't remembered seeing a sign, it must still be 60mph. I hedged my bets at just over 40mph for a few seconds and then opened up. Then it was a left turn onto the A1 and a brief blast at 70mph in fairly light traffic. And before long I was back on Newhailes Road and heading for the Test Centre. "Don't worry, it's just a bike ride and it'll be over before you know it", Tricia and Matt told me earlier, and it was true. I'd been concentrating hard and most of the riding we had done during the week had been fairly extended sessions. Just as I turned into the Test Centre's side road, and switching off my indicator, I was confronted by a large white van, parked in my lane. I did my left mirror, right mirror, right shoulder check and moved out to avoid it, and realised my indicator was still flashing. I hastily hit the centre button to cancel it and hoped I hadn't blown my chances right at the very end.

In fact, while I was fairly confident of my riding during the past half an hour, I was sure I'd made the fatal mistake just as Al had done, and I quietly stomped back into the building. I was also very warm and was grateful for the cool air inside. Steve the Pan European came in a moment later and took my intercom while I pulled off my helmet and caught my breath. We sat down, and he asked me to wait a moment while he finished off the driving report. As he glanced up, I tensed my stomach muscles and waited for the result. He smiled, saying "I'm pleased to tell you you've passed." I signed the paperwork for him to exchange my licence for one with the extra qualification, he passed me a magazine and a DVD for new riders, shook my hand and wished me well.

Then the moment started to sink in, and I left the building to rejoin Matt, who was waiting with the younger student, alongside the bikes. "I see a magazine there!" he exclaimed, and I held it up and smiled. He took a look at my results, and noted that I'd only been marked on four minor faults, one of which was hesitation, on which I remember being marked down when I sat my car driving test, and which I'd been really trying to improve over the past few days. I waited with the bikes while he went back inside with the student, and I looked over the results for myself. Fortunately my armoured jacket has a large back pocket which was just large enough for the magazine and DVD and envelopes and things I'd been given. Matt returned, and said Al was waiting back at the school. So we had a quick blast back along the roads and I trundled through the gate, giving Al a big thumbs up; he smiled and returned the gesture. Once off the bike I stood for a moment, just standing and gathering my wits, and he came over and gave me a great big hug. There had never been any doubt in his mind really.

Matt was dead pleased, too. He'd been wearing his lucky boots, and we talked about some of the riding we'd done over the week, how impressed he'd been with our progress, mine in particular. Somehow I think that'll be one story he'll be using with future students.

And there's another thing. This past week I've had a lot to take in and a lot to demonstrate, and I've had an absolutely fantastic time. I was very wary of the male banter at first, but I let my guard down and joined in, and before I knew it I was poking fun at them in return and having a load of fun. Quite honestly, it's been one of the best weeks of my life, and my friend Jo has been a great support; she certainly knows a thing or two about bikes.

And what now? Now I get to fire up my very own motorbike and take it across town to the training school to say thank you.

Workin' them angels

I don't know how to start this entry. My mind right now is such a jumble of big things and little things, half-baked ideas for a thread of discussion, half-forgotten ideas of introductory paragraphs because I didn't note them down when I thought of them...and I'm also suffering a little bit from tiredness and having spent too much time inside a car with a still-dodgy heater hose that's doing its best to poison me. And when it's dark and the M6 traffic is trying to average 90mph it's a bit much. In the past few weeks I've also been finding I have next to no time to myself. I've been religiously doing what the doctors told me to do each day, and I've been trying to gradually re-establish my original working pattern, although I'm still not quite there. I'm just so damn tired a lot of the time. Last night I slept - notwithstanding brief interruptions of caterwauling and errant 6am alarm clocks - for almost eleven hours.

I suppose it all started last Friday. Last week at work in fact was pretty busy with some once-a-year stuff needing my undivided attention. I think I might've made myself indispensible by being both detailed and complicated, and not quite transparent enough, so I had to be on hand. So on Friday after a morning of brainstorming ideas with the others and an afternoon drafting documents and waiting for contributions to land in my inbox, I then had to navigate myself across the water and through hitherto unknown lands to my friend's house for tea. In the event I'd practically memorised the entire route so it was only the on-the-fly reading of signposts and grappling with brand new motorway junctions that nearly threw me. Oh, and the frustrating half an hour I spent trickling along at walking pace might not've helped. But I still arrived in good time and only felt slightly worse for wear, and had a nice evening with her and some other friends who were coming. I've never known anyone who had quite so many pets; I thought the lady who had six cats and lived along the road from me was going some. We all had a bit of a trek home so we called it a night a little earlier than last time and I headed home. I can usually reverse-navigate without any maps at all. The air inside my car was beginning to affect me though and I went to bed with a headache and feeling a bit rubbish. For Saturday I had no particular agenda and had thought about going into town to look for leather trousers and things but a combination of sunshine which was too good not to just sit in and absorb, followed by a load of drizzle for the rest of the day which didn't inspire me to go outside, meant I didn't really do anything except pore over maps.

I like my maps actually. So the evening was when I realised I had stuff to do and my energy levels jumped up a level, and I was busy with the UK atlas and zooming in on Google Earth to examine motorway lane procedures. I had to be down by Manchester for Sunday afternoon and although I'd done a similar journey once or twice before, I was going to use a different route. I really don't like driving anyway and I tend to get a little nervous when it comes to motorway junctions at motorway speeds. At least on the bike, you're going much slower and you can always stop if you want. But I was ready and armed with two Post-It notes the next day, knowing precisely which lane I'd need and when, and when to manoeuvre into the right lane in time. And it worked like a charm. I pulled into the Travelodge car park just ten minutes ahead of schedule and I was relieved to get out of the car and breathe huge lungfuls of (fairly) fresh air. I found my room, dumped my bags, closed the curtains and conked out on the bed for an hour.

I hadn't slept but at least my mind had slowed down a bit, and just a short time later, Liz and Nick stopped by the service road to pick me up. I hadn't seen Liz since the Rush concert in 2004, but we'd spent that many hours talking to each other since then that we more or less dispensed entirely with the pleasantries and the catching-up. I think "Hello!" was all it needed. Then I discovered there was a slight change of plan due to rather unforseen circumstances, so we stopped by her brother's house to pick up his wife, whom I hadn't seen since Rush either. So, after a bit of time chatting to her brother about his new bike project the four of us left for the middle of Manchester. It was a nice change, staying at a Travelodge en route into town, rather than in the middle of town like last time, because it meant everything was a bit more relaxed all round and more convenient for later.

The first thing to do was find somewhere to have tea. Of course, we'd already tossed ideas around and decided that burgers might be a good safe plan, so we headed over to a building that looked to me to be half studio set and half computer game environment. Apparently it was the old newspaper publishing building, now "The Printworks" and it was huge. Before long we were installed in a cosy corner table in a restaurant and tucking into some exceptionally good cheeseburgers. No pickle either! But almost before we knew it, time was pressing so we headed outside and over to the MEN Arena and joined the queues.

Rush. 2007. They've been at it for 33 years now, who knows how much longer they'll go touring around the world? We headed over to the main hall to find our seats; I bought myself the Snakes and Arrows tourbook, to go with my R30 tourbook and my precious Permanent Waves book. I was only five when they toured that one, but it's interesting the way my musical tastes behaved. There is one tune I remember very clearly hearing a few times in my early childhood: a slightly spacey sounding, uptempo piece with heavy synth punctuation and slashy guitar chords. For a long time I had no idea who performed it or what it was called, until much later I saw the history of The Nice on TV. The band of my memory was Emerson, Lake and Palmer, with, of course, Fanfare for the Common Man. Well, perhaps my prog-leanings were instilled right from the very start.

I'd vaguely planned to note down each song as they played, but I think I can pretty much remind myself just by looking through the CD track listings. They opened with 'Limelight', which was nice to hear. Alex had a really clear electric guitar sound this time, due in no small part I think to sticking with his Les Paul rather than one of his thinner sounding PRS instruments; Neil's drums were sharp and nicely tuned, and though I wasn't much of a fan of his early forays into DW, these ones sounded good. I thought the bass was almost totally lost in the mix though; I could make out the lowest notes and some of the high frequencies in Geddy's now-traditional overdriven twang, but mostly I watched his fingers on the video screens and imagined the notes, since I know them off by heart. The set order escapes me right now, but anyone can look it up elsewhere, and someone else will have remembered it better than me anyway. They delved into some of their early works and pulled out a few songs I hadn't heard on any of their live albums to date; I was especially pleased to hear 'Between The Wheels' and 'Circumstances', and 'Witch Hunt' which made it onto A Show Of Hands back in 1988. From the new album they ran through 'Far Cry' and the groovy but short 'Malignant Narcissm' - the only two songs that have gelled with me so far - but they played 'Workin' Them Angels', 'The Larger Bowl', 'Spindrift' (which I didn't recognise at all!), 'Hope' and 'The Main Monkey Business'. Naturally, they wheeled out some of the big guns, like 'Tom Sawyer', 'The Spirit Of Radio', and 'Freewill' which really was spoiled for me by not being able to hear the bass. I was surprised when the lapping waters began, signifying the start of 'Natural Science', and ten minutes went by very quickly; it's one of my favourite songs to sing and play. Alex sneaked in a few bars of the Exit...Stage Left introduction to 'Jacob's Ladder' at one point which no-one else seemed to notice. They also played the melodic 'Entre Nous', so most of that album got a look in, which was fine by me. What else? "Booom Booom Booooom, Booom Booom Booooom..." sang the synth at the start of 'Subdivisions', always one of my favourite songs to listen to, simply because of the chunky synth sound and the boggling drum pattern. They rattled through 'The Analog Kid', 'Digital Man' and 'Distant Early Warning', and even played 'Mission' from the Hold Your Fire album. I was wondering how Geddy's voice would handle the high intro but I needn't have worried. They touched on 'Dreamline', but amazingly, they didn't play anything from the Presto, Counterparts or Test For Echo albums. Perhaps they'd played enough of them in the last couple of tours, though I'd've liked to hear 'Dog Years'.

From the last album we heard at least 'Secret Touch', and if there were others, I can't remember. Vapor Trails was a very badly produced album and although the guys in the band acknowledged that fact later, the songs on it are still to settle with me. It wouldn't have been a Rush concert without five or ten minutes of drum and percussion solo courtesy of Neil and it was almost entirely new, with new sounds from the electronic drums too. I would swear that he'd sampled the sounds of all the pots and pans in his kitchen and arranged something with them. We didn't get the customary gong at the end, which was a nice change actually, and the crowd sounded impressed. The encore featured the earliest song they would play that night: 'A Passage To Bangkok'. Geddy brought out his Rickenbacker just for the occasion and I was heartbroken; a bass he hadn't touched in probably 20 years, and I just couldn't hear it in the mix. But for the last piece, and back to his black Jazz for 'YYZ', I was guaranteed some bass listening, because the tune has three sections of bass vs. drums alternate duelling without any accompanying instruments. Hah! I heard those bits! And with the last four notes, that was it. "Thank you and goodnight!"

Thank you chaps. I totally enjoyed the concert, even more so than last time. And a terribly well-behaved audience too; I didn't hear any shouting or anything. Even Yes didn't manage that. I should say a big thank you to Liz and Nick too, for being just as crazy about the music as me, for being generally cool, and for feeding me lunch the next day.

Last time I stayed right in the middle of Manchester and hot-tyred it straight home early in the morning, which was probably the thing to do in those days; this time around I wanted to see my friends for longer. So after a reasonable night's sleep, in which I had a peculiar dream about demolition and a crane transporter whose engine sound was actually the sound of the air conditioner unit outside the Travelodge, and a reasonable breakfast, I ambled over to Liz's house for a bit. True to form, we spent all our time chatting. So much so that we hadn't had lunch and I was supposed to be leaving mid-afternoon to avoid the traffic! Duly fed and watered, we had a big goodbye hug and I aimed Clara at the M62 again.

My road map made no sense other than telling me where the road makers couldn't decide what number to use at this or that junction, but with my Audax-alike notes stuck to the dashboard I no problems. I hadn't (bothered to) bring my Landranger map of Chestershire and once off the motorway, although I had made notes for all the way, I'd spent enough time looking at the maps that I knew where I was going, and once past the shopping centre it was familiar territory. I spent the rest of the day talking with Jodi, we went out for the odd bit of shopping, and had a lateish tea after Sarah arrived. We watched Pirates of the Caribbean which I hadn't seen before, and I liked it a lot. Johnny Depp's nod to Keith Richards was brilliant. The day after, Jodi and I had a nice lazy breakfast and resumed chatting about everything and nothing. I had the same sort of plan for avoiding the worst of the traffic, so after lunch and a second goodbye hug I was on my way home. Mostly it went fine: there are only three major roads to get home and the M6 northbound is one of my favourite roads if I have to be driving. Three accidents (not mine!) put a crimp on my pace, but I was concerned as much about fresh air as time. I rattled up past Lancaster's control tower and pulled in at Tebay for hot chocolate and a toastie, then hurried northwards. When I got home I was worn out.

I'd arranged the following day off work to recover/chill/do washing and I needed it. Fed up entirely with driving by then, I was back on my bike yesterday and desperately trying to get the smell of exhaust out of my nose.

Today I'm in no less discomfort than I was before. It shouldn't have been this way but my appointment for inspection and possible mending didn't happen. I don't know why. I'd been trying to get through to someone—anyone—at the clinic to find out what time I was supposed to arrive as I'd heard nothing, but no-one returned my call. Then Hospital HQ phoned me yesterday with the news. So I have a slight reprieve on that front and a bit more time to heal and become fit with more miles on my bike too (yay!), but it also means I'll have to bump back my vague plans for motorbike lessons. I don't really want to have to learn in the snow and ice, much as it might be useful.