18. With my Luck He'll Have a False Leg and Dropsy
< Previous - Next >
I left you at the end of the last issue having introduced an astonishingly attractive oncologist whom I had never met before. She didn't remain in my life for long but she did ask all the usual questions.
"Is your weight stable and are you eating more now, I see from your notes that this has been an issue"
"My weight is pretty stable and I can at least eat now, if not very much so I'm not putting any weight on which is a concern for Helen but to be honest I'm quite happy to stay at 65 kilos, but I guess I won't be that lucky"
"Oh, you never know", she smiled "Some people never put the weight back on after treatment"
This was rather marvellous news, I like being 65 kilos despite apparently looking like Gollum when clad only in socks and boxers.
"Can you tell me why are you not able to eat much, is it because you still can't taste things"
"Oh, no, that's no longer a problem, my sense of taste is returning if not returned completely. It's just it's not my sense of taste that has returned, I appear to have been randomly given someone elses. Pretty much everything I used to like I now find I'm not keen on. For instance I can no longer eat anything with chilli in it and that was one of my favourites." I replied plaintively.
She smiled again "That's because the treatment has basically reset your tastebuds, you will need to retrain them by increasing amounts of heat or strong flavours"
And there it is, the explanation of why I now seem to have the diet of a toddler. I used to eat practically anything and enjoyed a Madras curry rather inordinately. I now become upset and cranky if I put too much pepper on my dinner. My two favourite foodstuffs have returned to childhood, bread and ice cream, not together I hasten to add. The bread is still a bit of an issue as it tends to hang around at the back of my throat and refuse to go down.
The oncologist then showed us the PET scan of my neck and the section that the radiologist was suspicious of. However, she was of the opinion that the cancer had all gone and the next scan would confirm this. With this gratifying news she summarily kicked us out of her office never to be seen again.
All this happened on the 30th of June which co-incidentally was the last day of the contract that I had been working on for the previous six months. I was now officially, cancer free, unemployed and fancy free. Which might account for the monumental stupidity of the next pile of ridiculousness that I got myself involved in.
The very next night I recieved a mysterious text from Mr Newman, motorcycle tinkerer extrordinaire. Mark had been waiting impatiently for me to return to some semblance of health as my cancerous condition had caused him a certain amount of concern, he had almost without fail turned up to see me pretty much every week throughout my treatment, he had poked and prodded the old Enfield exhaustively until it finally sprang into life. What he had signally failed to do was ask any questions about my treatment, or possible, imminent demise. He just turned up and did stuff that needed doing. He is, basically, rather a wonderful human being, albeit not that normal.
Anyhow as soon as all the unpleasantness was over he sent me a mysterious text, well not that mysterious actually. He had seen a bright red sidecar on Gumtree and was exhorting me to buy said sidecar post haste as it would be the work of a moment to attach it to my new bright red motorcycle and would improve it's value immeasurably, in fact he pointed out that it would very nearly double the value of my bike. As it turns out, over the years I have done vast amounts of research into purchasing a bike and sidecar and one of the things that had stopped me actually purchasing one was the fact that they would, uniformly, require me to take out a new mortgage in order to afford said outfit.
I of course obeyed Mark instantly and sent the chap a message to the effect that I was interested in his sidecar and would he like to sell it to me. He ignored me. This upset me somewhat so the next day I sent him another message asking whether he was available for me to come and purchase his shiny sidecar on the weekend. He ignored me once more. This was becoming aggravating, the sidecar was exactly right for my bike, it looked to be in excellent condition and was, moreover, quite outstandingly cheap.
I made one more attempt to get hold of him and, in a fit of over confidence, told him that if it was required I could pick it up that very evening. I also included my phone number so that he could call me. He ignored me. At this point I gave up and concluded that the sidecar was not going to be mine. However the universe had other ideas, a couple of hours later my phone rang and it was the purveyor of sidecars, yes he would sell me the sidecar, if, and only if, I picked it up by 8 o'clock that night.
Now, although I can ride a bike no problem the last six months of being pumped full of chemicals and thoroughly irradiated have left me somewhat on the weedy side and therefore a little concerned about my ability to pick up sidecars on my own. This was getting a little complicated as I had also promised Jenny, my niece, that we would set up our yurts at her work. Jenny is the manager of an assisted living residence and every year she borrows our yurts and decorates the garden of the house and puts on a mini Glastonbury for the residents.
In a slight panic, I texted Mark that I was having to pick the bike up straight away, however at such short notice Mark was not available as he was, inevitably, out helping someone else. The boy is a little too saint like for my liking.
There was a certain incipient panic building, it looked like this was going to involve me driving to the wilds of Gloucestershire on my own, in a 7m long camper van with a quad bike trailer attached to the back that I couldn't see whilst driving, to pick up sidecar from someone who was quite obviously a retired gentleman of a certain age and probably as unable to move sidecars as I was.
Helen suggested ringing Alberto, my daughter's partner, and asking whether he was available, she was also starting to get a bit nervous that I would insist she came as moral support. I couldn't get hold of Alberto and I resigned myself to a solo journey.
First however Helen and I had to get the trailer attached to the back of the camper and out of the village both of which are no mean feats. The trailer sits at the side of the drive on an area of bark mulch and over time becomes more embedded and therefore more difficult to move. What with me having a dodgy back and cancer induced weediness and Helen, well Helen's comment is that we are "The cripple and the OAP" which sounds awful but always makes us both laugh because it's basically true.
The trailer has double wheels so will move in a straight line but doesn't like turning unless you lift up the front. With much puffing and swearing we manage to push it out and get it attached to the back of the van and check that the lights still worked, trailer lights seem to share ancestry with Christmas tree lights and stop working randomly.
Now comes the worrying bit, getting up the hill and out of the village. Although I have towed many a trailer in my time my trailer reversing abilities are pretty much non existent. Once upon a time I did manage to reverse a caravan up my drive at the old house but with a caravan you can at least see it. My trailer is very shy and hides completely behind the van making reversing the bloody thing nigh on impossible, by the time you see that it's going the wrong way it's far too late to correct. Hence my nervousness about leaving the village with it, if I meet a similarly unreversable vehicle or one of the hordes of elderly persons who infest the lanes and can't reverse, I am, to put not to fine a point on it, totally fucked.
I generally get Helen to go ahead of me in the car to fend off any elderly drivers and hopefully enable me to pull into a passing place before we meet in a part of the lane where my van basically touches both sides. We successfully negotiated the lane without meeting anyone and once I am out on the main road I'm fine, I just have to possibly drive to Gloucester and manhandle some dodgy old sidecar into the trailer with just me and a retired gentleman of indeterminate age, with my luck he'll have a false leg and dropsy.
As it happened I needn't have worried, Alberto and Ocean were there to help us erect the yurts and he readily agreed to go with me to Gloucester and since he's half my age and thinks nothing of running 10k before breakfast any lingering worries were dispelled.
Alberto and I pulled up outside a rather imposing 1930's residence in a leafy suburb of Cheltenham, in the drive was a rather lovely looking red sidecar on blocks. We rang the bell and a very sturdy man who looked to be in his early seventies answered the door. He didn't have a false leg and there was no sign of any dropsy.
We trooped round to the side of the house and stood in a group round the sidecar.
"Have you had it for long" I inquired
"I've only had it for two weeks" he confessed, "I bought it from a chap in Yorkshire who assured me it was an aluminium Squire, which it most definitely isn't. Since I had driven all the way to Yorkshire I decided to buy it, but when I got back and put it next to my 1940's bike it was obvious it wasn't going to work, so it had to go"
It was quite obvious to me that it would be exactly right for my new Royal Enfield, I wasn't completely sure but it looked to me to be an almost perfect colour match with the paint on the Enfield.
We had a good look around the sidecar but to be perfectly honest I haven't a clue what I'm looking at and Alberto even less, however we both thought it looked amazing, so the deal was struck. We unhitched the trailer, wheeled it onto the drive and the three of us manhandled the sidecar onto the trailer with one minor hitch that when we all got on the trailer it immediately tipped up and made me squeak in alarm.
We strapped it down tightly, shook hands with it's former owner and set off for Butcombe.
I was now the unreasonably excited owner of a bright red sidecar. This is going to be brilliant, summer has just begun, the weather is beautiful I am currently unemployed and can spend time setting up the sidecar and Helen and I can go off exploring.
I wheeled the bike out of the garage and stood it next to the sidecar frame, how the bejiggery fuck this rather agricultural looking piece of crap actually manages to become a safe and stable platform to carry my loved ones I have no fucking idea.
I left you at the end of the last issue having introduced an astonishingly attractive oncologist whom I had never met before. She didn't remain in my life for long but she did ask all the usual questions.
"Is your weight stable and are you eating more now, I see from your notes that this has been an issue"
"My weight is pretty stable and I can at least eat now, if not very much so I'm not putting any weight on which is a concern for Helen but to be honest I'm quite happy to stay at 65 kilos, but I guess I won't be that lucky"
"Oh, you never know", she smiled "Some people never put the weight back on after treatment"
This was rather marvellous news, I like being 65 kilos despite apparently looking like Gollum when clad only in socks and boxers.
"Can you tell me why are you not able to eat much, is it because you still can't taste things"
"Oh, no, that's no longer a problem, my sense of taste is returning if not returned completely. It's just it's not my sense of taste that has returned, I appear to have been randomly given someone elses. Pretty much everything I used to like I now find I'm not keen on. For instance I can no longer eat anything with chilli in it and that was one of my favourites." I replied plaintively.
She smiled again "That's because the treatment has basically reset your tastebuds, you will need to retrain them by increasing amounts of heat or strong flavours"
And there it is, the explanation of why I now seem to have the diet of a toddler. I used to eat practically anything and enjoyed a Madras curry rather inordinately. I now become upset and cranky if I put too much pepper on my dinner. My two favourite foodstuffs have returned to childhood, bread and ice cream, not together I hasten to add. The bread is still a bit of an issue as it tends to hang around at the back of my throat and refuse to go down.
The oncologist then showed us the PET scan of my neck and the section that the radiologist was suspicious of. However, she was of the opinion that the cancer had all gone and the next scan would confirm this. With this gratifying news she summarily kicked us out of her office never to be seen again.
All this happened on the 30th of June which co-incidentally was the last day of the contract that I had been working on for the previous six months. I was now officially, cancer free, unemployed and fancy free. Which might account for the monumental stupidity of the next pile of ridiculousness that I got myself involved in.
The very next night I recieved a mysterious text from Mr Newman, motorcycle tinkerer extrordinaire. Mark had been waiting impatiently for me to return to some semblance of health as my cancerous condition had caused him a certain amount of concern, he had almost without fail turned up to see me pretty much every week throughout my treatment, he had poked and prodded the old Enfield exhaustively until it finally sprang into life. What he had signally failed to do was ask any questions about my treatment, or possible, imminent demise. He just turned up and did stuff that needed doing. He is, basically, rather a wonderful human being, albeit not that normal.
Anyhow as soon as all the unpleasantness was over he sent me a mysterious text, well not that mysterious actually. He had seen a bright red sidecar on Gumtree and was exhorting me to buy said sidecar post haste as it would be the work of a moment to attach it to my new bright red motorcycle and would improve it's value immeasurably, in fact he pointed out that it would very nearly double the value of my bike. As it turns out, over the years I have done vast amounts of research into purchasing a bike and sidecar and one of the things that had stopped me actually purchasing one was the fact that they would, uniformly, require me to take out a new mortgage in order to afford said outfit.
I of course obeyed Mark instantly and sent the chap a message to the effect that I was interested in his sidecar and would he like to sell it to me. He ignored me. This upset me somewhat so the next day I sent him another message asking whether he was available for me to come and purchase his shiny sidecar on the weekend. He ignored me once more. This was becoming aggravating, the sidecar was exactly right for my bike, it looked to be in excellent condition and was, moreover, quite outstandingly cheap.
I made one more attempt to get hold of him and, in a fit of over confidence, told him that if it was required I could pick it up that very evening. I also included my phone number so that he could call me. He ignored me. At this point I gave up and concluded that the sidecar was not going to be mine. However the universe had other ideas, a couple of hours later my phone rang and it was the purveyor of sidecars, yes he would sell me the sidecar, if, and only if, I picked it up by 8 o'clock that night.
Now, although I can ride a bike no problem the last six months of being pumped full of chemicals and thoroughly irradiated have left me somewhat on the weedy side and therefore a little concerned about my ability to pick up sidecars on my own. This was getting a little complicated as I had also promised Jenny, my niece, that we would set up our yurts at her work. Jenny is the manager of an assisted living residence and every year she borrows our yurts and decorates the garden of the house and puts on a mini Glastonbury for the residents.
In a slight panic, I texted Mark that I was having to pick the bike up straight away, however at such short notice Mark was not available as he was, inevitably, out helping someone else. The boy is a little too saint like for my liking.
There was a certain incipient panic building, it looked like this was going to involve me driving to the wilds of Gloucestershire on my own, in a 7m long camper van with a quad bike trailer attached to the back that I couldn't see whilst driving, to pick up sidecar from someone who was quite obviously a retired gentleman of a certain age and probably as unable to move sidecars as I was.
Helen suggested ringing Alberto, my daughter's partner, and asking whether he was available, she was also starting to get a bit nervous that I would insist she came as moral support. I couldn't get hold of Alberto and I resigned myself to a solo journey.
First however Helen and I had to get the trailer attached to the back of the camper and out of the village both of which are no mean feats. The trailer sits at the side of the drive on an area of bark mulch and over time becomes more embedded and therefore more difficult to move. What with me having a dodgy back and cancer induced weediness and Helen, well Helen's comment is that we are "The cripple and the OAP" which sounds awful but always makes us both laugh because it's basically true.
The trailer has double wheels so will move in a straight line but doesn't like turning unless you lift up the front. With much puffing and swearing we manage to push it out and get it attached to the back of the van and check that the lights still worked, trailer lights seem to share ancestry with Christmas tree lights and stop working randomly.
Now comes the worrying bit, getting up the hill and out of the village. Although I have towed many a trailer in my time my trailer reversing abilities are pretty much non existent. Once upon a time I did manage to reverse a caravan up my drive at the old house but with a caravan you can at least see it. My trailer is very shy and hides completely behind the van making reversing the bloody thing nigh on impossible, by the time you see that it's going the wrong way it's far too late to correct. Hence my nervousness about leaving the village with it, if I meet a similarly unreversable vehicle or one of the hordes of elderly persons who infest the lanes and can't reverse, I am, to put not to fine a point on it, totally fucked.
I generally get Helen to go ahead of me in the car to fend off any elderly drivers and hopefully enable me to pull into a passing place before we meet in a part of the lane where my van basically touches both sides. We successfully negotiated the lane without meeting anyone and once I am out on the main road I'm fine, I just have to possibly drive to Gloucester and manhandle some dodgy old sidecar into the trailer with just me and a retired gentleman of indeterminate age, with my luck he'll have a false leg and dropsy.
As it happened I needn't have worried, Alberto and Ocean were there to help us erect the yurts and he readily agreed to go with me to Gloucester and since he's half my age and thinks nothing of running 10k before breakfast any lingering worries were dispelled.
Alberto and I pulled up outside a rather imposing 1930's residence in a leafy suburb of Cheltenham, in the drive was a rather lovely looking red sidecar on blocks. We rang the bell and a very sturdy man who looked to be in his early seventies answered the door. He didn't have a false leg and there was no sign of any dropsy.
We trooped round to the side of the house and stood in a group round the sidecar.
"Have you had it for long" I inquired
"I've only had it for two weeks" he confessed, "I bought it from a chap in Yorkshire who assured me it was an aluminium Squire, which it most definitely isn't. Since I had driven all the way to Yorkshire I decided to buy it, but when I got back and put it next to my 1940's bike it was obvious it wasn't going to work, so it had to go"
It was quite obvious to me that it would be exactly right for my new Royal Enfield, I wasn't completely sure but it looked to me to be an almost perfect colour match with the paint on the Enfield.
We strapped it down tightly, shook hands with it's former owner and set off for Butcombe.
I was now the unreasonably excited owner of a bright red sidecar. This is going to be brilliant, summer has just begun, the weather is beautiful I am currently unemployed and can spend time setting up the sidecar and Helen and I can go off exploring.
With the sidecar came a large box of complicated brackets and attachments to fix the sidecar to the bike. There was only one small cloud on the horizon, I am quite astoundingly inept at anything mechanical, I can make things out of wood nay problemo but I have always despised working on vehicles, it was one occupation that could send me into a towering fit of baffled rage quicker than any other.
However, nothing ventured and all that, the next day I got Helen to give me a hand getting the sidecar off the trailer and under a pop up gazebo on the drive. I had been diligently researching how to fix a sidecar to a motorcycle and the consensus of opinion was it was easier if you removed the body from the frame. I spent a somewhat unhappy half an hour grovelling on the drive under the sidecar removing the bolts that held the body to the frame. This was mainly unhappy as the bolts had been positioned in exactly the wrong position to get a socket wrench attached and each bolt nestled happily in a little bracket that made it almost impossible to move either the bolt or the nut more than a few millimetres at a time. This occasioned rather a tirade of swear words and is the one of the reasons that I hate anything mechanical, nothing about performing bloody mechanics is ever easy
However in the end I had removed all the bolts that held the body to the frame and removed all the bolts that attached the mudguard to the body. I got Helen to come out and help me stow the body back on the trailer under a tarpaulin. We both braced ourselves to lift the body and it basically shot up into the air making us both nearly drop it. It was incredibly light, we stowed it back in the trailer under the tarpaulin.
I stood contemplating the frame and wheel of the sidecar as it stood forlornly on it's axle stands. Oh bloody hell, it looks complicated, well it doesn't. It looks frighteningly simple, what looks complicated is the array of stanchions and clamps that attach it to the motorcycle.
I wheeled the bike out of the garage and stood it next to the sidecar frame, how the bejiggery fuck this rather agricultural looking piece of crap actually manages to become a safe and stable platform to carry my loved ones I have no fucking idea.
And I really didn't, once I had the bike next to the sidecar frame it was obvious that nothing on the sidecar would attach in any way to the bike.
I rifled through the box of clamps rather despairingly, measuring the size of the clamps against the size of the bike frame. None of the clamps matched the frame and anyway one of the arms was far too long and the other two were far too short.
I might have bitten off more than I could chew, this was a contrivance from the 1980's, it didn't come with an instruction manual and, to be perfectly honest, in these modern and enlightened times hardly anyone is stupid enough ride one anyway.
This might take a bit longer than I had anticipated, I had watched a number of YouTube videos of people blithely fixing sidecars to motorcycles in a couple of hours and waltzing off down country lanes with a merry laugh. I have a nasty suspicion that none of them filmed the several thousand hours they spent trying to work out how to do it.
It didn't help that nearly every single item I found that detailed the steps needed to attach a sidecar to a bike also warned that if you don't know what you are doing this could be very dangerous and it might be best to get someone who knows what they are doing to do the job.
It was slowly dawning on me that this might take a great deal longer than I had anticipated. There was literally nothing further I could do so I sadly put the bike back in the garage and put the frame back next to the trailer to await further developments.
Comments
Post a Comment