SV-Wolf's Bike Blog

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#261 Unread post by **dr_bar** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:01 pm

Oh don't go there with the vaccine thing, my gawd what an unholy pile of krap you'd uncover with that topic. Mercury as a perservative just to start the list....

I hope your back comes into line in time for your trip, good luck with your appointment...

#262 Unread post by **sv-wolf** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 3:12 pm

Hey Doc! Very glad to find a fellow traveller on this one.

I'm happy to rant about a lot of things, but this one is special. This one is very, very personal...

Gnnnarrrrgh!!!!!

To mercury add a few million human stem cells from unborn foetuses and go on from there...

No, you're right, let's not open this particular can of worms. Anyway, you were quick with a reply. What time is it over there right now? I guess you are the sensible one. It's gone two o'clock in the morning here and waaaaay past my bedtime. Gramps has to keep up his strength, I guess!

G'night.

Tue Dec 12, 2006 4:01 pm

If your back is still inflamed later...try some Voltarin to help you through your journey.

It's an anti inflammatory.

If the pain is travelling down your leg, it could be the sciatic nerve, also.

#264 Unread post by **dr_bar** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 4:42 pm

sv-wolf wrote:Anyway, you were quick with a reply. What time is it over there right now? I guess you are the sensible one. It's gone two o'clock in the morning here and waaaaay past my bedtime. Gramps has to keep up his strength, I guess!

G'night.

Well, it was just after 6pm when I answered that, now it's about 7:40pm and I need to have a nap before work...

Aaaah, the joy of graveyard shift...

#265 Unread post by **sv-wolf** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 8:21 am

blues2cruise wrote:If your back is still inflamed later...try some Voltarin to help you through your journey.

It's an anti inflammatory.

If the pain is travelling down your leg, it could be the sciatic nerve, also.

Cheers blues. I don't do rx medicine as a rule. It nearly killed me thirty years ago - came damn close! Very damn close! - and I still have to put up with the aftermath on an almost daily basis. Since then the only medication I've taken is one asprin and one course of antibiotics - and regretted both.

I'm also reluctant to suppress pain when it serves a useful function - when, for instance, it tells me which stuff I souldn't be doing with my back while it's recovering from an injury.

On the other hand, I don't like to become unnecessarily rigid about things and if it's a matter of going to India with a packet of pills in my pocket or staying home, then I'll take the pills and go to India. No way am I going to miss this journey! So (genuinely) thank you for the tip. If I don't recover in time I'll definitely check it out.

Unfortunately, I think you are right, the pain follows the direct line of the sciatic nerve down my leg. It is probably very inflamed. For now, I just hope I can relieve the pressure on it by genetle exercise (ie, going for short therapeutic walks and remedial rides on the Daytona

)

#266 Unread post by **sv-wolf** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 1:53 pm

Hmmmmm! Sorry for the break in transmission guys. Normal service is being resumed slowly.

This morning was exciting. As I looked out the door into my street, all I could see were fire engines and police cars. Police in yellow tabards were swarming all over the place while loads of soco guys were taking measurements and photographs and generally looking extremely busy and important. The firemen on the other hand were just lounging around in a relaxed sort of way, chatting.

Now the police always do overkill. So I just assumed that the fire alarm in one of the hostels down the road had gone off (again!!!) I didn't realise till I went out into the back garden to uncover the bike that there had been a huge fire in the house right next door to me overnight. The curtains had been burned to cinders so I could see right in. The rooms were completely gutted. The walls were soot black and everything looked charred.

My house is a mid-terrace so there was only a party wall between my bedroom and the fire last night. I said a quick thank you to whoever it is who receives thank yous from non-believers like me. I couldn't get my mind around it. I'd not heard or seen a thing. I'm a heavy sleeper, but... At the very least the police gernerally like to use opportunities to make their presence felt - and heard.

I asked one of the officers if anyone had been hurt. Apparently no-one had, which was a relief to me as I know the people who live there. The downstairs back flat, the one with the worst damage, is occupied by a single mum and two young children and there is a disabled woman upstairs.

With all the soco-looking guys hanging round I began to wonder if this might be more than just a routine police investigation. Maybe they think it wasn't an accident. That made me think of 'Sonny Boy' I blogged about him some while back. He is my neighbour's bothersome boyfriend. He gets himself tanked up fairly regularly then blows his stack - screaming and shouting and throwing things. Remember him? I began to wonder if he had not gone just a teensy bit too far this time.

Getting the bike out of the alleyway was interesting as it is a one-way street and there were public service vehicles blocking my way out. I had to wheel the bike some way down the pavement (British 'pavement' = US 'sidewalk', I think) past all the activity, negotiating a few bollards which were put there to prevent people like me doing exactly what I was doing right at that moment.

When I got home in the evening after work the top end of the road had been closed off completely with cones and a police sign. They were still all there. So more than ever I suspect they think some sort of 'foul play; was involved. Well, it's that kind of neighbourhood. I nipped in between the cones rode down the top part of the road, which was clear and got the bike safely into the back garden. No way am I going to leave it out overnight in this part of town. Apart from the risk of damage from kids returning late home from parties or the pubs my insurance is invalidated if it does not stand on my property overnight.

I'm soooooo glad for the rain we've been having in the last couple of days. It has washed all the salt off the road, so I don't have to worry about the bikes so much. And it is not nearly as slippery any more. A colleague at work who rides an Enfield Bullet tells me that some local authorities have started to mix molasses in with the salt. I'm sorry, but at first I thought he was pulling my leg. It turned out that he was in earnest. Is this another local goverment strategy to win votes? Maybe they think that if anyone slides on the salt and hits the road, they can keep their energy by licking the molasses till they get to the hospital? The government is insisting that food processers put extra vitamins and minerals in almost everything nowadays, maybe they think the iron in the molasses will be good for us?

OK. It looks like it will soon be time to go to bed. Hopefully, I can focus on keeping the blog going again now. Had a very low spell over Christmas, so just didn't have the energy for it. It was my first Christmas without Di and it was a hard one to get through. I'm up with a bit more energy now, thanks to a course of acupuncture and acupressure and herbal treatment. It seems to be working well.

#267 Unread post by **dr_bar** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 11:10 pm

Glad to hear you're up and about, I understand how holidays can hurt...

So, just when does your little tour happen? Is your back going to be able to handle it? And do you have all of your fund raising done?

Ooooh... twenty questions, sorry.

Sat Jan 13, 2007 9:55 am

Only 4 weeks to go. Woo-hoo.

Are you packed?

Lucky you to get out on the bike. The roads here have too many icy patches to safely ride.

Kal · #269 Unread post by **Kal** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 7:44 pm

Concur about sonnyboy, I am shocked that the Fireservice didn't get you out of there though. Maybe they thought your house was empty as there was no response to their noise?

Oh and the Hostels, if they are ours I am sorry. Our Fire Alarm contractors for some areas seem to switch their phones off on a regular basis.

#270 Unread post by **sv-wolf** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:22 am

I've heard on the local grapevine that the police are definitely treating the fire as arson. What an interesting life we lead here in 'The Triangle.' Two years ago there was a drug war and a local gang tried to blow somebody up in the carpark behind our house. And before that...

But it's a great place to live. I wouldn't move. No, really! For most of the residents life goes on quite peaceably. They see the results of all this sub-cultural activity from time to time, but never come into contact with it directly. I have no fear of walking across the local park after dark, for example, even though it is unlit and unpoliced, nor do any of my neighbours.

The hostels belong to North Herts District Council, Kal, so you are forgiven for the moment. They are family hostels for homeless people. I get to know the kids staying there quite well because I am always coming across them retrieving their balls out of my garden after they have kicked them over the hostel wall. Occasionally, some of the adult tenants discover that the door in the tall fence at the back of my property affords a convenient short-cut through to the shops. I've never caught anyone using it but neighbours have seen them and I sometimes find that the door has been left unlatched from the inside.

When Di was alive she used to befriend some of the kids, and they still occasionally come round to visit. I've had one of them (aged 23 now) sleeping on my futon for the last couple of days 'cos he'd had a row with his GF and she had chucked him out - temporarily. He contacts me occasionally - usually when he is in trouble and needing help.

His parents were both junkies. They never paid their rent and got kicked out of one house after another by their landlords. They always left whatever possessions they had behind them. K refused to have anything to do with drugs when he was a kid despite all the taunts he had to put up with from his parent's friends. He looked after his younger brother and sister throughout all this and protected them as well as he could. Now he's grown up, he is suffering from depression. He has a foul temper and is always getting into trouble with the police. He has some unhelpfull attitudes and is enmeshed in a social world based on violence and drugs. It's the usual story. But he struggles. All the time he struggles and is gradually beginning to understand that he needs to do something urgently about himself if he stands any chance of a decent life. He has actually done amazingly well given his background. His one interest in life is banger racing and he can bore for England about it. Yawn!

As a one-time homelessness officer I thought I knew a lot about the local teenage gang scene, but I've learned a lot from these kids over the last ten years. They survive in a world of gang fights, muggings, contract knifings, drug dealing and sexual cheating It's a world based on lies and dishonesty, threats and retribution, and it's all held together with a crazy sense of 'honour' and 'revenge'.

..........................................................................................................

I had an interesting time getting into the carpark at work this morning. As I rode up to the barrier the bike started to slither all over the place. The road had gone multicoloured with a huge diesel spill. I managed to get into the couryard without grounding the SV but I had a nasty moment or two. I heard later that a waggon had dumped a load of diesel on a corner near the council depot. A few minutes later the council's mechanical road sweepers went out. Result: well, I leave you to imagine - think finger painting. I shudder to imagine how many riders or drivers had a skating-rink experience this morning. Did any of the sweeper drivers notice or stop to consider that sweeping all that diesel round the town might not be a good idea? Obviously not.

On Sunday, I gave up my rideout to spend an hour in the local C of E church, talking to parishoners. I haven't seen many of them since Di died. Not being a believer I don't normally frequent the church or church hall. The Vicar, had asked me to go and talk to people after the morning service, as she has nominated my Enduro India trip as charity of the month, partly because she thinks it is a good idea and partly in memory of Di. I thought that was very kind of her especially as I am not one of her flock. Nomination guarantees a minimum donation of £300 towards the charitites. I like the people who make up the local congregation. They are very lively and communally minded - not at all pious in their religion.

I'd started to worry that, until recently, my attitude towards the forthcoming Enduro has been... well, just a bit casual. It's only four weeks now before I go and I just haven't been able to work up any enthusiasm for it. But that all changed recently. The pistons are begining to pump in my brain at last. Suddenly, I'm like a wild boar who's just found a cache of fermenting apples. I'm going up to the Excel bike show in London at the beginning of February to get the last of my gear. I've got my insurance sorted, but I've still got to get my Indian Visa sorted out, and my International Driving Permit.

I motorcycled over to Luton about two months ago to get the permit.
They are only issued at large, designated Post Offices, so I can't get one here in my home town. I rode around the Luton one-way system for half an hour, discovering more of the town than I ever knew existed and trying to find somewhere reasonably close to the Post Office to park.

Once inside the Post Office, I queued for ten minutes. When I got to the counter I was given a form. I filled in the form, queued for another twenty mintes, got to the service point and then waited a quarter of an hour while the permit was made up. I hobbled back to where I'd parked (my back was still really bad then), had the consolation of talking to some guy who was drooling over my new Daytona, then rode home. The next day I looked at the permit to discover that the counter clerk had copied down my date of birth wrongly. I now have to repeat the whole procedure. I had thought of not bothering, but it just isn't worth risking an error like that coming to light in a nightmarishly bureaucratic country like India. People have disappered for less.

I'm going to ride down to see my stepson Dan in S-E London tomorrow night so I can get to meet little Oscar at last. I'm staying overnight. Then the following morning Dan is going to drive me back up to the Indian High Commission at The Aldwych in Central London for 7.00. The High Commission opens at 8.30 but I'm told there will already be a queue of at least 250 people at the door by that time.

The Commission do accept postal applications but they say in the instruction pack I downloaded that it takes a month to process them. They also say that if the application form is incorrectly filled out they will return it at the end of the month and without comment. In other words, if there is the slightest error on your application (like you have not used black ink or or you have failed to write in capitals throughout) they will make you wait the whole four weeks and then return your application, unprocecessed without telling you what is wrong with it. I can't help thinking it sounds just a bit like, 'Yah! Booh! Sucks!' to me. I thought my own Local Authority was hot on bureacracy. Maybe it is some sort of an intelligence test?

Making sure that you queue on a day when the High Commission is open is also a bit of a nightmare. The building closes on Indian Public Holidays, and there seem to be more of these than there are people in Calcutta. India appears to celebrate all the Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, Sikh and Christian holidays as well as a Republic Day, a National Day and Mahatma Gandhi's birthday. Sounds like not a bad system to me - unless you need a visa in a hurry. Finding out when these holidays are is not easy either. I rang the Commission's premium rate recorded telephone message service. There is just one long message which runs for about twenty minutes. Opening times are the last thing on the tape.

The Enduro begins in the middle of February. There will be about 150 of us this year. We fly out to Goa from Heathrow on 18th. Or rather, we fly out to Colombo in Sri Lanka, where there is a 10 hour stopover before we pick up what is rather misleadingly described as a 'connecting flight'.

We have 24 hours in Goa to recover. The Royal Enfield Bullets arrive the following day and we spend the afternoon pootling round town to get used to the right-hand gear change and the bike's other interesting features - like its total lack of comfort and kamikazi kickstart.

I really have been out of it recently. I've done nothing to prepare myself for this. I haven't even looked at the map to see where exactly we are going. I've got four and a bit weeks to go. The clock is ticking.