You can't tour on a single!: A busy week

Sorry for being a bit quiet recently, but I had a really busy week.

As regular readers will know, I've been working away from home for the last few weeks. I've been contracted by a large company with a number of factories spread around the country to carry out an inventory of their electrical spares. Currently each factory has a separate non-computerised stock control system, and the plan is to have one company wide computerised system. So basically what I do is go to each factory, identify each electrical spare, input it into a large spreadsheet and cross reference it with suppliers catalogue numbers. It's a bit boring, but it's well paid and I would have been unemployed otherwise.

After a number of weeks at various factories I had a lot of data to input, so it was planned that I would spend a week at home typing away at my computer, or that was the plan....

I had started typing last weekend in the hope that I would be finished before the end of the week, the weather would have improved, and I might get out on the bike. So far, so good.

I live in a semi detached house and had discussed with my neighbour a plan to have the building roughcast as the original finish had started to look a bit tatty, (it was built in 1961, so has lasted well). As I was working away from home I had left all the decisions to her, and the last message I got was that the work would be started 'in a few weeks'. On Monday I look out of the window and see the roughcasters' van and one of the guys carrying a large board with colour samples on it going into my neighbours' house. I went to see them and we decided upon a colour. Then the roughcaster said he'd be starting in the morning! My neighbour had forgotten all about the agreed starting date and hadn't told me. This meant that I had to prepare the outside of my house in a bit of a hurry! I had a canopy to remove from above my front door, numerous plant holders to take down, and demolish a dilapidated brick built porch from the back. Luckily, my brother Stuart came round and helped with the porch, but it took me a full 3 days to get all the work done, working just ahead of the roughcasters. This meant that I only managed a few hours each night inputting data and the job was slipping further and further behind.

The roughcasters were finished by Friday and I have to say that I was very impressed by the work they had done. I just wish that I'd had more time to prepare things.

While this was going on, I was also waiting for a couple of phone calls. First was from a potential employer that had phoned on Monday saying that they were just sorting out details of a job I'd been interviewed for, and that they would definitely phone me by Friday (inferring that I'd got the job). Friday came and went with no phone call, not really surprising as they same company were definitely going to phone me about three weeks ago, but didn't.

Remember my recent Friday bike, the Yamaha SZR660 where I'd said 'this could change soon....'? A couple of days before I'd written this, my friend Terry had sent me an advert for a non running SZR locally. I contacted the seller saying I was interested and gave him both my phone numbers, and said I'd be able to come and see it any time as I was at home that week. He got back to me a couple of days later saying the bike was still for sale and to arrange a time. The problem sounded like the carb needed cleaned out, but as the bike was cheap I was willing to buy it unseen as I'm familiar with the engine. It had a bit of cosmetic damage, but nothing I couldn't fix so it sounded like a good project – basically a 'more sporty Skorpion Sport'.

However, despite a number of e-mails, the seller still hasn't got back to me, and I even got Terry to e-mail him posing as another potential buyer, but he hasn't received a reply either. The bike is still listed as 'for sale' on a website, so why isn't the seller contacting two potential buyers? Some people...

By Saturday I was feeling physically and mentally worn out, but I still had all the inputting to do. I got up early and worked all day trying to clear the backlog. I'd arranged to meet some people that night, but by the time I was due to go out I was feeling really run down and unwell. I went out, but wished I hadn't, and went home as soon as I could. However, I couldn't sleep as I was suffering from a terrible headache and felt even worse when I got up in the morning.

I was still too unwell to go to Yorkhill Easter Egg Run. This is a charity event where motorcyclists go for a ride on a route through Glasgow (many in fancy dress) to raise money for the Royal Hospital for Sick Children , known locally as 'Yorkhill' (area of the city it's in.)

As you can see from their website, there was a good turnout, so lots of money would have been raised, people had a good day out, and it's always good PR for motorcyclists.

This is from last year's Run, there are some other videos on YouTube taken from a fixed point, and it takes about 13 or 14 minutes for all the bikes to pass, so there must have been hundreds of bikes there.

You can still donate by phone via the Website. There's also a Facebook page, from where I stole these pictures: