Jo Ackroyd’s Big Biking Adventure

Co-Ordinates: 49033211/11573617

Don’t want you to be jealous, but I’m sitting by the Danube in my pants, with a cold beer and biscuits in 25 degrees and Shirley gets new bits on Friday. The road sparkles here but when I mentioned it at BMW he said he had never seen it. Apparently it’s fairy dust and only fairies can see it!!

Knew I was thpecial Xxx

Today was heralded by a chaffinch with a loudhaler, middle age is realising juat how sensible sidestands are on pushbikes. I looked forward to seeing a woman who could feed 5000 with those tits and I thought about how ducks don’t sweat, no matter how fast they swim, remember this as its not an indication as to how fast the current is in the Danube.

If you want all this to make sense, buy my next book! By the way, I haven’t heard from Chris Evans yet, are you sure you are all bombarding him with emails???

xxx

Random Thoughts, The Adventure

If I look in wonder at the end of a gun, I’ll put my finger in the barrel and ask them if its real.

If I see a tea pot, I’ll assume there is a doormouse inside.

Another door will open on Sunday, with or without a potion. It’s important to me that I leave on cue. Not only to ensure that an early failure is avoided, but to ensure a real decision has been made.

I’ve never made a decision that means anything in my life. I have been a fortunate bystander. I’ve been a passenger in a car where I’m not the driver and now, in time counted in hours, I have the ability to take mental charge of my life.

It’s a considerable worry, if I get it wrong and I’m not a success, if I’m not up to the task and faulter away into hiding or if I grab it and use it and refuse to look back exploiting it for what it is, and could be.

I should remember that the success is measured by my means and my rule and not by others. I cherish the smiles along the way but I should also bear in mind the smile that matters first is my own. This sounds decidedly selfish and does not sit well with me but I also understand how a moments peace will come from many hours of perseverance.

By this I mean that I can’t expect to give others happiness if I don’t understand it myself.

My mortgage review is tomorrow, that’s a story in itself how the bank has played its own game in a falling market and told me my house is in negative equity. Their own property services have valued it last week at £15 more than I paid for it, their negative equity claims have come to nothing and the surveyors have revalued it and brought equity back into their unnatural virtual world of property values. It seems their only valuation, until I paid for an arbitrary individual surveyor, was based upon a computer model that’s run country wide.

Work continues, unfortunately. I feel they have missed the point, but then I’m sure every employee feels the same. Still they think Im insane, they cant understand why I might give up a job of work that they live and die for. They can’t see why life as it is, is not enough, they believe the only problem in the business lies completely at the door of their clients and the remodel of the business to suit a particular stream is not needed, if not an insult.

The bike needs a weight loss, as do I. The next feew days will be about harsh choices made in an environment where guess work is as close as I will get to knowing how, what and why things may be required. The things I pack are useful in some way I’m sure, but will they be useful to me in the circumstances I face?

I suppose I’ve also made an involuntary choice about malaria tablets, the nurse was incredibly unhelpful, virtually dumb by comparision to my expectations. I have a prescription but no knowledge. I think tomorrow will be a better day to pursue this with the chemist down the road.

I think I’ve been drinking for some time now, maybe a year and believing that the drink brings a solace of a type and style I dont find during daylight hours. I now know different.

The silence and solace is found in the daylight hours, the boredom is felt while the sun shines and the people around me toil and spoil to gather wealth. The entertainment comes with drinking. I change Lupin like into new thoughts, new challenges and interesting concepts. I see life through different eyes, different thoughts and bizarre emotions that begin to make sense in a surreal world where happiness law is obeyed and is policed by random kindness.

I know this isn’t the usual reteric. I know this goes against the grain and the mass thinking is that the reality is the sunshine and the stupour is the fantasy, but currently, I say that the Deja Vu of my world is more real than the society yo live in. My world has more love in it, more compasion, more fantasy and more possibility than the world where tin foil and orange peel create routines that might be currupted by my thoughts.

The door will be open on Sunday, I can walk through it, ride through it and begin to live a choice I’ve hidden from or I can have a huge prolapse!

Keep the faith!

Communication, Random Thoughts

Do you think Captain Cooke felt like this, right at the moment of the most important and life changing trip of his life? You think the Apollo missions had atmosphere in the spaceman rocket ships?

Did Sir Raleigh feel like this on the adventure that brought home my chips and quite probably, a good deal of fish?

I suppose these statements sound very vain, as though I’m comparing myself to people with true integrity and grit. My trip has little to do with going to the moon, finding a continent or bringing home a potato.

Still. You think the mixture of anticipation, excitement, fear and self endulgance were even slightly similar.

I hope so.

Growing up is a blogg for another another day.

Random Thoughts

I had high hopes that Shirley was going to be a Porridge Machine. Medium hopes at least. That was going to be the bright side smile to a dark and financially painful mend it, fix it episode.

With the gear box feeling as it does I assumed there was a good supply of porridge in there, enough to keep me going in the mountain cold!

BMW guys have taken it for a ride and apparently, it is what it is. There’s nothing wrong with it, the gears are exactly as they should be. I have to say this has more to say about Honda’s than it does BMW’s, but don’t tell Shirley that!

I think Shirley’s other name is Thumper, Shirley Thumper. Seems fitting given the nature of her beast.

I’ve fitted a new clutch cable and hope that’s going to help things, also fitted a new screen its a BMW original part and so I’m hoping its going to do away with the super speed vibrating nodding dog effect I mimick at 65mph.

I can relax and pack the emergency dental pack deeper in the panniers and not worry about the self adminstration temporary filling kit going off before I get a chance to use it.

The screen unfortunately is black but it is also noticably different to the other, considerably smaller and so the wind will hit more squarely. I think therefore I can refit the peak to the Tour X3.  I brought it home from the shop tucked into my jacket with the new MOT certificate. That idea didn’t last long, dropped it all at the first roundabout. That’s why bikes have panniers, but they would be much better if they weren’t in my living room.

The Uzbekistan Letter of Invite has been lost in the Embassy.  While this is unfortunate, maybe it will give reason for adventure later.

Getting any Visa in Moscow is, apparently, a very poor idea. It’s far too late now so I’ll have to think on my feet… wheels!

I’m going to rethink the packing lark and I have a sewing machine out at the moment making little straps to hold stuff on.

I hope this doesnt mean I’m turning to the pink side…

Two friends came round tonight, I gave them dishwater to drink that had been filtered through my sweetwater purifier and it tasted TERRIBLE. They were quite kind though and pretended it was ‘lemon squashy’ while i thought it was just ‘fairy liquidy’. They came baring gifts, one with music for the Nokia the other with a great gift, a St Nicholas engraved on the back with, ‘Every sunrise and every sunset’.

I hinted that these days though I’m not much of an early morning person! I woke the other day and realised that mornings are getting earlier and earlier. Sunrises in the winter are easy. Sunrises in summer - a whole new challenge!

One of them burped as they left, a bubble came out.

Communication, Expedition Preparation, Random Thoughts

A lovely friends dad’s ’special’ friends brother-in-laws cats funeral directors uncles brothers goldfish has told me that Russia might be more than I can chew!

(Identity protected to preserve the innocent)

I’ve bitten a chunk…

Maybe there is another view too.

You hear all the negative stories, but not the happy endings. You hear about misery but not triumph. You hear that the new neighbours are buggers, the next village eat their own children and that you dont trust anyone over the border.

Then the neighbours become friends, the next village makes fantastic stew and we find profit in trade over the border. It all becomes relative to our perspective.

We do the same in this country don’t we?

Nottingham don’t like people from Mansfield.

Londoners are not to be trusted.

People from the Isle of Wight have webbed feet and Burton upon Trent is an inbred town.

You see!

According to stories from our own inhabitants we innately trust no one.

Why should a view of Russia be any different?

Yet when you visit the Isle of Wight you do find nice people there, but they can also swim very quickly!

Maybe the stories and warnings are valid, perhaps they are told to keep us safe, to make us aware of a new and different environment. They could be told as methods to make us realise that our normal malaise is just not right when we are out of our comfort zone.

For all of my rememborable life I have been afraid and worried by such stories and because of this I have not lived the life of outrageous behaviour I wish I had.

So, I take the meaning and the intent. I will be especially careful the closer I get to Russia and I will seek out trustworthy advice as I go. I’ll maybe look for like minded travelers to meet up with at opportune times. I don’t want to be naive.

But equally, I don’t want to be scared of humans living human lives any longer.

After all, that’s faith isn’t it?

Communication, Expedition Preparation, Random Thoughts

Appraisel at work that meant nothing but also had no negatives, although I tried to account for my shortcomings to give some humility to the process, I also viewed the process as a gentle persuader to new life.

Kisses for no reason. A friend sent me kisses and a smile, while I don’t know why, I won’t question too hard as long as they continue to flow…

Welding completed. It seems my approach has worked all the welding was done in a day, the whole thing is complete. I have a strange feeling that the more I wonder design and create the less usefull those aspects become. They seem to be worthless in themselves but useful only as a way to gain focus and to create my own belief sytem. They give reassurance and I suspect little more although occasionally the practically built items may work, insurance looking good, fork springs have just popped together!

Expedition Preparation, Random Thoughts

There is a feeling of warmth, something warm and comfortable. I feel a softness, a fur, a warmth that’s comforting in the same way the fetal position under a duvet can make you want to stay in bed for another hour.

It’s embarrassing to admit, but the warmth is my extended belly sitting in a wholesome position on my thighs while I read Sam Manicoms motorcycle adventures while eating breakfast on the toilet.
I’m not sure what is more disturbing.

Eating while reading or the fact I’ve put on weight.
(Could be the toilet and reading thing too.)

I’m hoping Peter is telepathetic and is going to ring and offer to take my passport to either the Uz embassy in London, or the Taj embassy in Austria…I have a preference!

Peter. Yes I mean you! Hello ! I feel as though we have little opportunity to talk but will hold you as a friend nevertheless. One day in years to come we will pick up a conversation as though tomorrow has not been quite the duration away from yesterday as it has been but becomes closer in our minds than the calender shows.

Oh, and I don’t really need the passport thing going on!

I have had some bad news today, the springs from Hagon aren’t going to be here till Tuesday, delivery is getting later and later and the worry is not so much the springs being delivered as how long it will take me to fit them and get it wrong and learn and get it wrong and ask and eventually get them right!

Tony at Hagon has a talent for making bad news palatable! When he told me, I couldn’t fault him. I believe he is trying and being thwarted.

What a great word, thwarted!

Can you imagine a life without the boundaries and fixtures we are held by today. Can you imagine giving up on the values you carry so dear to your heart now that have been instilled within you from not only society and up bringing but also years of descendant indoctrine?

It’s not only this that’s holding you back but you.

You hold yourself in such high esteem and judge your success by the view others hold of you that to succeed in anything that really matters to yourself is to be released from a bondage that holds not your body but your mind.

To be seen to move away from the value that’s placed upon you by others is probably the most difficult desicion to make in life.

It follows you and therefore needs the belief few people can give. It follows every day, we all do it, we call different lifestyle choices as Pikeys or Hippies not realising that what we are doing is judging the life style choices of others as not acceptable to us because of the life we expect and not the life we believe but because of the life we endure.

I’m hoping to go and learn that I shouldn’t judge.

I have no reason to endure. Life shouldn’t be endured as much as enjoyed. Three letters that make more difference than any amount of positive thinking.

Gradually, I’ll leave behind with every mile moving from what we might have to endure, to a riasing of my smiles to what I hope to simply enjoy.

Expedition Preparation, Random Thoughts

To hold hope in your heart and realise your ten years too late for an occurrence that should have dominated your younger years. Not this trip, simpler. More ordinary. A girl.

But I’m also enthused by the queries and smiles Ive found tonight.

Today, I’ve been part of a meeting where I had the opportunity to sit back and view the life and decisions others made through the eyes of a stranger. They not only followed a process that was random, but were so unrelated to the strangeness of their remarks, in the world context that I am about to follow, that I had to, well, snigger.

I’m quite obsessed by a thought that’s unhealthy. While finding Faith I might forget to discover more about love.

Beautiful glints in your eyes, marvelous smiles and fantastic curls in your hair.

I must think more about Pakistan and a single rather than double visa, that would mean an ‘in’ visa while the ‘out’ would be variable by design of the process. I should imagine myself in Kaliningrad because I’ve naively discovered its part of the Russian Federation states and so I doubt Ill be able to travel through it. Visa is single entry for the wrong month…

Why is the MSR hydration bag black when in hot countries where it will be needed this will absorb more heat than it should?

I’m so incredibly ill at ease with a life that’s difficult in all the wrong ways. Now is my opportunity to discover new sides to a life less ordinary.

I’m privileged and must remember my privilege carries a cost of realisation. I must remember that the cost is the reason for the going, the being and the pushing forward to a something new and undiscovered.

Expedition Preparation, Random Thoughts

I have lost Faith, I cant deny it, but there is also something else going on.

It’s as though Christmas or your Birthday is here, unwrap a present, and find another layer, strip back the postman stare and the black and white cat, pull away the newspaper tear and there at the back of my mind I’m thinking Faith is still there, I believe everything will work.

And if only 50 % works, Its 50% more than anyone else around me.

What is interesting is the more I think about things the closer I get to a realisation that…oh my god Im turning soft!

It’s all about love also.

I’m feeling unloved I feel as though I’m not sharing my love.

People need people dont they? As much as they pretend they dont, they do.

We need to talk, to discuss to look into each others eyes and feel that we mean something more than then WE believe, but only as much as they trust us to be.

I don’t have that.

It’s a release, realise that your not bound by the ties of others. Breathe a sigh and gain strength, take heart, look forward, look to what you have and could obtain, not material gain but just smiles.

Count the smiles you have and take a guess on how many more are to come.

If it’s not thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands…..then you need to join me to find your future, to find something you can be proud of and that might lead to an adventure thats unspoken by others around because they are too scared to get involved.

There is a lack of discussion. People become afraid when you mention a task like this, afraid in a way that cant be explained but only felt in silencepeople metion appropriate words of encouragement but precious few throw themselves into the world that divorces you from material wealth and career progression. Are these real things, can we feel a tangible asset from them or do we percieve them to be what they are through a value we place upon them?

It’s people that push us forward. Think the thoughts others do not favour. Be unpopular by being positive because through these thoughts we carry with us the rest of humanity that have decided that yesterday was good enough for tomorrow.

For me, every now and then, tomorrow is just not good enough.

Some people have a hard time pulling away from the safety of their current lives.

See you soon - feel the faith and embrace it.

In any way you can.

xxx

Communication, Random Thoughts

I’ve had a dream that cooking needn’t be a chore, my pots and pans need a stroke of ingenuity to make them truly work at a level of efficiency Reverend Stirling would be proud of.

Have you seen the Wikipedia page for Stirling engines? They are fascinating and the Rhombic Drive Beta version Stirling Engine is quite sensational…

Take a look. It’s a very ‘Male’ engine

Any who, off topic, I’ve been thinking how to cook with one pan. Apparently the boredom of food from a one pan cooking stove can drive you to excessive chumba eating elsewhere. So, I’m thinking how to make this thing work.

More to the point, I’m looking at the different to lessen the focus on the normal.  I’m pulling away from the ordinary and diverting to something else so I can imagine everything else is OK.

But to be more positive, I’m looking and spending time thinking of other things while my subconscious works out the detail problems of the now.

Both views are equally plausible, I like the latter but there is a disadvantage to this, that time passes while details are worked out in a less conscious state - as an old manager used to say; many times too often, “It’s a worry”!

Now and again I loose faith, or should that be FAITH!

I’m disappointed that the forks are not working yet, wrong springs, I’m upset my brake lines aren’t complete, I dont have the new K&N air box for desert travelling to help protect the fuel system, the electric modifications are not coming together.

To explain further, I don’t have the skills but I’m trying. I’m learning. My concentration has gone to pot - can I remember what it is I might of already learnt!!! Who knows.

I suppose if we were to consider the Buddhist view, when I need the information I don’t need to ‘work it out’  I only have to remember what it is I have already learnt.

Crikey - might take a while!!!!

The visas are not happening and I can’t find insurance, I have to keep working at work, I have to give a lecture on Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I need help but don’t know where to look, I’m feeling both helped and lonely in the same moment.  Ive had a great weekend with fantastic friends. It was quite memorable for many reasons, the bar dancing, the pole dancing, the local dignitary…or the food.

I need to recover FAITH!

Any ideas?

Living alone is hard, but preparing this kind of venture alone is more lonely.

But that’s the whole point isn’t it? If you were to help, you would undermine some of the purpose while reinforcing the rest. Your help would be appreciated and would restore FAITH that people have a good nature. But, would detract from one of the purposes - to restore self confidence through delivery of new skills.

Oh Dilemma!

Communication, Expedition Preparation, Random Thoughts