7. Interesting Side Effects

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 Limbo has returned with a vengeance, I have no clue what is going on and nobody seems particularly inclined to tell me.

An interesting side effect of the endoscopy was the nausea and stomach aches subsided and pretty much disappeared.  I hate to admit this but I'm fairly sure they were psychosomatic.  I am worried sick about having cancer so QED I feel nauseous. I am diagnosed with a mass lesion in my stomach and start having stomach aches, I am told that there is no mass lesion and the stomach aches magically disappear. Not sure why the nausea stopped but maybe the low grade terror has just abated and therefore no more nausea.

What was now exercising my mind was my, frankly, enormous motorcycle.  Over the last few years as I have, frankly, got older and shorter...what the fuck...I have become more enamoured of smaller motorcycles. At one point I had a Honda 125 Grom which is about as small as you can get. I looked ridiculous on it, but it was fun and did exactly what it said on the tin.  This has been fueled by watching far too many Ed March videos where he travels the world on a Honda C90.

It occurred to me that I should downsize the motorcycle collection and realise some much needed cash.  To this end I trotted off to Fowlers in Bristol to have a look at maybe part exchanging a couple of bikes for one smaller more manageable machine.

The Triumph Speed 400 and Triumph Trident 660 caught my eye, these are both much smaller machines than the Honda.  They would both flatter my lack of leg length, and were both extremely pretty into the bargain. What's not to like? 

I am a serial motorcycle purchaser, to date I have had 38 motorcycles. I probably need psychiatric help, it's basically an addiction. Motorcycles generally last about a year, at most two, before something else catches my eye and I end up changing.  There is a whole rigmarole that goes with this process that usually involves me reading every single review of a bike, then test rides and eventually a bright shiny new motorcycle.

Having got overly excited, possibly drooling somewhat over the reviews of the Speed 400, I rang Fowlers and organised a test ride on the little bike that very afternoon. I rode it, sort of liked it but then again ...hmm. It was lovely and achieved a frankly amazing top speed of nearly 100mph. Just didn't quite...hit the spot.  

In a fit of depression over my somewhat disappointing test ride and more to the point, in the midst of all this motorised digression, because I still have untreated cancer rampantly eating into my neck I decided to ring the hospital.  Ooh er, my daughter has informed me that my sentences are too long and I'm not sure that last one even makes any sense. Never mind, where were we, oh yes, ringing the hospital.

I tried a different tack this time. I checked the vast swathes of documentation I've received over the last month or so and found the name of the consultant that was originally doing the surgery. I rang the BRI switchboard and asked to be put through to his secretary. I had to do this several different times using false names and an assumed voice before I managed to speak to someone.  

"I was scheduled for surgery last Friday but it was cancelled, could you tell me what is happening"

After going through the whole malarkey of name, birth date, NHS number, how many times a day I take a shit and the name of my dog she was finally able to reply,

"Oh yes you are scheduled for surgery next Friday"

What the actual fuck, "Are you sure?"

"Oh yes, you have to be in here for 0700 on Friday morning"

"Perhaps it might have been an idea for someone to tell me?"

"I'll send you a text immediately"

Unfortunately I am a man of a certain age and my memory is not quite what it was as the preceding conversation does not quite ring true. I'm fairly sure there was quite a lot of "What the fuck" ing coming from the hospital end as well and a certain amount of befuddlement on both sides as we tried to work out what was what, but, and this is important, you get the gist. Surgery is happening and it's happening in roughly a week's time. 

I quietly congratulated myself on having stopped taking the blood thinners because at no point either in the phone conversation or subsequent texts or letters was it mentioned.

Right, now back to something much more important, in a another fit, this time of relief over the surgery being scheduled, I organised a test ride on a Triumph Trident 660. Small, beautifully formed with a mental engine. I scooted off to Fowlers post haste,  I was looking forward to this. I was shown how the bike worked by, what appeared to be, a small child who seemed to be under the impression that I had never ridden a bike before. 

I took it for a rather exuberant ride up the Wells Rd and then round the Chew Valley.  I hated it, I hated it to the level that I cut the ride short and took it back to Fowlers and informed the small child that it was a pile of steaming dog poo and, frankly, I would prefer to walk.  

Alright, alright, don't shout, I just told him, "Not for me I'm afraid", but I implied the rest with a severe lift of one eyebrow.  

This is not going well, there is a dearth of small bikes in the UK, the rest of the world understands that you don't need a gazillion CC's and they all have an embarassment of smaller bikes but not the UK. We like our motorcycles over powered and overweight.  I tried to take out a KTM 690 SMC which is about as unsuitable a bike as you can imagine. Luckily it had an engine light showing otherwise I might have bought it there and then. I even talked to the salesman and asked him to send me a part exchange price for my bike against the 690. 

Rather frustrated I toddled off back to Butcombe and in a fit of pique and because it was a really lovely afternoon I took my Transalp 750 for a ride over to a friends place in Portishead and, this is embarrassing, it's a much better bike than either of the ones I had ridden.

Right what I need is an easy motorcycle for just going into town and up to the shops.  I can get rid of one of mine that I don't ride and get something for pootling around on.  I think that contemplating my own mortality has bought on a reckless bout of shopping mania. Unfortunately, I saw this Royal Enfield Trials 500 on Facebook and basically fell in love.  It was for sale by the Old Boys Motorcycle Workshop an actual bona fide bike seller, unlike most of the scamming dross on Facebook.

Also unfortunately there was no possible way I could buy this exceedingly splendid motorcycle. I needed to sell one of my bikes to free up room in the garage and to stop Helen garotting me at the earliest opportunity for buying yet another motorcycle. More to the point I was imminently having surgery. Not a good time to be buying motorcycles.

I reluctantly put down the phone where I had been doom scrolling through motorcycles on Facebook marketplace and moodily chuntered off to do something useful.

Couldn't keep away however, I kept coming back to the pictures of it prostituted all over Facebook. It was calling to me like some sort of mechanical siren.  I then made a big mistake. I texted the guy at the Old Boys Motorcycle Workshop and asked whether there was any chance of buying the bike and them keeping it until after the new year as I needed to sell another bike. He promptly came back and said that not only could they keep the bike, but that they would be happy to sell the bike that I was getting rid of.

Shit, this isn't good, you know what the rest of the story is, after some to-ing and fro-ing to sort out the logistics I bought the bike and organised for them to drop it off at my place and pick up the bike I was selling.

 

Yes you are absolutely correct, I am a terminal idiot.  This is a ridiculous motorcycle. It's only redeeming feature is the fact that it wasn't terribly expensive, other than that it's old, slow and probably wildly unreliable. But the fact is that the nice Old Boy was going to deliver it in two days time, just in time for me to shove it in the garage before once more entering the welcoming arms of the NHS.

The bike was duly delivered and my bike taken away, unfortunately it didn't have a current MOT so I couldn't take it out so it is now nestling comfortably in my garage awaiting some nicer weather and an owner who is slightly less handicapped by imminent dismemberment.

I was just wandering into the garage to have yet another look at it when my phone rang, Private Number, it's either my daughter or the NHS

"Hi, I am afraid that we are suffering staff shortages and won't be able to do your surgery on Friday"

My heart lurched and made its way toward my boots. This is not good, not fucking good at all.

"Would you be able to come in tomorrow at 0700"

Oh fuck, I mean really fuckity fuckity fuck!  I narrowly averted an unfortunate incident in my underpants before replying,  "Of course, that'll be no problem"

"See you tomorrow then"

Right, now I really am shitting myself, I think I shall just go and spend some time communing with myself on the toilet.