yen_powell

Whilst Pete's side stand is short, shrivelled and stumpy, mine is proud mean and long and needs at least half an inch removed from it. let's just swap stands.

I'm on holiday for the week. So far I have been to Tesco once and had two rides out on a push bike, it's a bit nippy for that though. Living the dream here. My local river has flooded the paths in my nearest park so I spent a lot of time pedalling through glutinous mud whilst trying to stay upright. Still at least I don't have to answer a zillion emails and I've managed to watch series 1 of The Expanse. A robin landed on a branch about 18 inches from me yesterday as I was walking to Tesco and sat there looking at me with something wriggly in its gob. I locked eyes with it and slowly got my phone out to take a picture. By the time I'd faffed about getting the camera on he hopped into a proper tree, but still quite close. Also just fitted the plastic covers to my new to me fog lights. I hadn't done it before because they only stay on with friction and I was worried they'd disappear and they are bloody expensive. I drilled a few holes and zip tied them on. Need to find some small black zip ties, only had white ones, but they'll do for a while.

Twoesme is a term used by people serving time in clink at her Majesty's pleasure, said when someone lights up a cigarette by other people who want to share it.

What are you polishing your bike seats with?

I had to push my mate Charlie through the mud on one of those. He came out with road tyres green laning in the middle of winter. My wheels are exactly like that, but have two vertical webs from the rim for the spokes to join onto rather than one as in the picture. Not changed a tyre on it yet, but I'm sure to be doing that before the warm weather hits.

I've just come back from work and I am happy to report today I saw people driving on both sides of the road....towards me...... and also a man pulled up next to me in his car on a long one way road to ask directions. He was facing the wrong way!

Titian blonde I think you mean.

My new bike has spokes and is tubeless. The wheel looks similar to the one Honda used on its XL600M thing in the 80s, I think they had a hold on the patent at the time but you see other makes with them now.

I forgot I had this to use for about 6 months, it was my late dad's car and it was upsetting my mum on the drive outside her window after he passed away so I took it away. I green laned it a few times before selling it on and it was pretty good in proper gloop and super ruts. I thought about hanging on to it, but two cars take up too much room, you only need one to get spares for your bike.

No photographs of most of my 4 wheeled vehicles. So snips from google instead. Well there are two real pictures below, one is a bit embarrassing. The first 4 wheeled vehicle I ever drove was a forklift truck, sort of like this one, with an embarrassing name. That was when I was 18. I didn't drive my first car officially until I was 22. Then after I passed my car test I got an ex Essex County Council Transit Truck. This sort of shape but rusty as buggery and bright yellow. Sold that for the same money I paid for it including dodgy MOT supplied by my then girlfriend's dad who's first name, even then, would get your head kicked in if you shouted it out loud in a pub. Let's just say it began with N and he shared it with Guy Gibson's dog. Then I bought a 1968 Beetle in grim grey for 200 quid in 1988. Had it sprayed up in Ford Rosso Red after fitting new front wings and running boards and sold it for about £1500 a year later. Then I got on my employers lease car scheme and took over my mates Ford XR2. Looked exactly like the screen grab below. Then I swapped that for an XR2i. Now I do actually have a picture of that one. Taken because some fuckers stole 4 of my wheels. Managed to keep that quiet from the lease company and went carless for a few years until fatherhood made me buy my 2nd favourite car of all time, slow, odd starting habits, but I liked it, a Peugeot 405 estate. Then I got a new Fiesta diesel, that thing flew. 1.8 or 1.9 engine from the Focus in a smaller lighter car. Got a bad back driving to Normandy and back in that. It was there at an unattended fuel station I discovered I didn't know what the French word for diesel was!!!!! Luckily a native hove into view and told me it was gazoil or something similar. Then a few years without a car and got a VW Golf diesel. I had my stroke the day after it was delivered and didn't drive it for 6 weeks as you get a min 4 week ban which in my case got extended by 2 weeks by my doctor. Then I got my current car which I bought in 2009 when it was about 9 months old. This one has been my favourite car so far, very slow, but I really like it. Passed its MOT today, after fitting a new front wiper blade as there was a small split in it. Here it is the day I bought it, not so shiny now as you can imagine with anything I own. As I tell everyone, if you're gonna have one, have a long'n! You have to set your watch and hour forwards if you sit in the back seat as it's in a different time zone.

That issssss Magnificent!!

I'm only supposed to put one up so I will delete the other posts.

I don't know what it's called. On my route home if I avoid the motorway so somewhere between Jcn 7 M11 and Rayne if you sort of draw a straight line between the two.

Just found these. Bit more up to date.

That's not an old wall, that is what stood between us and a mad Austrian if they got across the channel (Hitler, not Arnie I mean)

Demand a pay rise. Pete is just a jack booted hyena oppressing the general proletariat, although I bet his jack boots are immaculate.

I agree the old A120 was nicer. A country road but straight enough for all vehicles to move along at a decent pace, lots of thatched cottages to look at etc. Had a few icy nights when I would be riding down the outside of a 15 mile queue, usually an accident at the Stebbing side road. I once saw a the weirdest looking horse being led by someone in a high viz vest briefly flash by in the headlights (it's an unlit road), I thought I was seeing things. A news item a few days later revealed it was a woman walking a llama at night as practice for a round the world walk. It had been hit and killed by a vehicle. After they built the new A120 my trip to work went from an hour down to 45 minutes. After getting fuel at Start Hill one night I thought I would carry on riding home on the old A120. That was when I hit the muntjac deer and killed it, I think the quieter road lulled us both in to a false sense of security. I hit it when it ran out from behind the sign saying STEBBINGFORD PLEASE DRIVE CAREFULLY.

I went there back in January last year I think. I try and wash the car yearly whether it needs it or not.

I went to the local car wash and got the chaps there to give the car the swooshing before going through the automatic washer, then I topped up the windscreen washers, checked all my bulbs and drove up and down the A120 to Stansted and back to give it a bit of a fast run (to help with the emissions test) and get the rust off the brake discs before my MOT booked for Tuesday. Not used the car much this last year. Can't do it on Monday as I have to go to work then because of a hideous job kicking off and I'll use my bike most probably.

Yeah rough as arseholes my school. Yet I had to do Latin for a couple of years, Greek was voluntary though so I could avoid that. The only Latin I can remember is the delight on finding out that 'Anus' was an old woman and Salve Nauta was Hello Sailor.

At my school we only had enough craft teachers to do third of a year metal work/woodwork/art. Not enough text books for one each, and those we did have had the covers falling off or pages missing. One pad when you played cricket, you made sure you kept the unprotected leg well out of the way, I think we had two bats though. The school field did have grass.....and lots of mud, so much mud. The running track was paint on grass, that and two goal posts was the sum total of stuff out there. You can see my school on the big screen. My music classroom was in Made in Dagenham. They must have rented it for filming on the cheap as it was demolished a while afterwards. We had a mad scary dwarf as our music teacher, you shit yourself if he looked in your direction. The dreaded Mr Thacker! I remember telling my dad about how scary he was (my dad was one of the school caretakers) and he laughed and said, do you mean little Lionel?

What's not to love?