Telling My Dad
December 10, 2007 at 8:52 am | Personal, Trip | No comment
Christ, I was bricking myself.
My dad, has never been a fan of bikes, and is the only person I can think of that has my respect, the intelligence and a reason to talk me out of this trip.
Having delayed it this long, I wanted to try not to rub it in my dad’s face, so I concoct a story about the boss lending me her company car for the evening so I can go and visit him (as he’s 150 miles away!).
I make the trip down, which coincidentally happens to be the first time I’ve ridden my bike outside Milton Keynes!
A long journey in the dark isn’t my idea of fun, and with only one heated grip working and my £12.99 Tesco Value gloves, my fingers are about to fall off.
Nevertheless I arrive, parking up some way away from my Father’s house so that I can undress (which feels very weird on the side of the road, despite me having my normal work clothes underneath my gear!) and make a relatively normal entrance (bar a rather suspicious looking backpack stuffed with all my clothes).
I go into my dad’s house nochalantly and wait for him to bring up my trip.
“Yeah, James, that’s actually why I’ve come down here… I’ve changed my travel plans a little…”
“Oh?”
“I’m not going to stay in Italy, I’m going to drive to Australia”
“What!?”
“The thing is… I’m not going to do it in a car”
“What are you going to do it in?”
“… A bike…”
“Ah…”
He looked at me meaningfully for a few moments, obviously deciding how to react.
“Sounds interesting!”
Phew! He later explains that he would have exploded and forbidden me to do it, bar the fact that he didn’t think I’d take a blind bit of notice!
Interestingly enough, his concern about the bike was not as focused as his concern about me travelling through Iran, or the fact that I was doing the journey on my own.
I related my tales of planning and revealed that I had my license and not only had I already bought a bike, I’d ridden it to his house.
While shock value was what I was trying to decrease when telling my dad, it was still rather entertaining to see his incredulity to each new revealation.
In the end, my dad gave me his blessing, and I’m sure will prove to be a powerful ally with regards to contacts, paperwork and general travelling know-how.
A great success!
Diabetes Insipidus Testing
February 11, 2008 at 8:55 am | Personal | No comment
It’s been a fair old while since my last journal entry.
Partly because nothing much related to the journey has happened, partly because I’ve stopped thinking about it, as even though my departure date draws inexorably closer, anticipating it prolongs it and makes the days grind by unbearably.
My doctor scheduled an appointment for me directly after one of my travel jabs at the beginning of Jan to discuss the results of a blood test I’d taken in December.
Apparently I’d had slightly lower than average results on a particular hormone that instructs the kidneys how to process water correctly, and as a result I might have something called “Diabetes Insipidus”.
Essentially that would mean that should I be in a situation where I did not have ready access to water, I would die much faster than a normal person, a matter of hours rather than a matter of days.
Obviously as I’m going through some rather hot and desolate places in the near future, I felt this was worth pursuing, so I was subsequently referred to a specialist (or rather, told to find a specialist, as my GP didn’t know of one!) and after another blood test was scheduled in for the ultimate test a “Water Deprivation Test”.
Which is very much like it sounds, I’m sat in a hospital at 4:30PM, having been here since 8:30AM, not allowed to drink or eat, having blood drawn every hour or two, and having my piss measured on the hour every hour.
The doctor tells me that I basically don’t have Diabetes Insipidus, my ah.. “output” is too minimal, but as he didn’t order the test he’s going to get me to complete the full thing, which means I’ll be here until ten (which allahumdalillah (or however you spell it) should mean that I’m back home at around midnight, as the hospital is in Bedford, I’m still in Milton Keynes and my bike…
My bike is currently residing in a jaunty little town called Taunton, now I may have mentioned this town before, and if I did, it’s because that’s where I bought it.
One evening when I was on my way down to see my dad, I was riding along quite happily after an hour and a half or so when the temperature warning light flicks on, joy.
I hop off at the next opportunity (which is a rather annoyingly long distance) and check the temperature of the radiator with my ungloved hand, stone cold, and when I switch my engine back on the warning light’s gone.
I shrug my shoulders and head off again, only for the problem to occur 10 minutes later.
After repeating this process a couple of times I decide to just ride through it and spend the next 30 minutes playing around with my speed and revs to see when the light switches on and off.
I get to my dad’s and discuss the problem with him, he (quite sensibly) recommends I don’t drive home with it, and stay the night, taking a day’s holiday the next day so I don’t have to go in to work.
Miraculously enough it turns out that my bike’s broken down catastrophically on the last day my warranty is valid! Hurrah!
After a few failed attempts at resolving the problem over the phone, Graham (of Graham’s Motorcycles), agrees to come and pick it up and sort it out.
Result, exactly what I wanted, however it still means taking a £50 train ride back to Milton Keynes.
Graham rings me up a few days later to say he’s ordered a new radiator as the old one’s as leaky as a sieve, score!
After faffing around trying to convince him to deliver it back to me (unfortunately he’s busy), I take a surprisingly cheap train down there to go and pick it up myself.
One rather long train drive later… I’m in Taunton, pick up the keys and off I go.
Beautiful sunny day, I lean back in the seat chopper style (well, as much as you can on a dual sport!).
I put my foot down (well, actually I twist my right hand but that doesn’t have the same ring to it) to overtake a pickup and get hit in the face *splat* with a green liquid.
At first I think ‘what a prat, he’s sprayed his windscreen wipers at just the right time to hit me as I over take, then I look at the dash… “Oh that’s pretty, a little red thermometer with an exclamation mark… Oh…”
I pull over into the service station to find that the bike’s daintily vomited the contents of its cooling system all over itself and me.
*ring ring*
“Graham’s Motorcycles”
“Hi Graham…”
“Hi Sam…”
I sit on the kerb and eat my burger while I wait for Graham’s son to come and pick me and the bike up, however I have to shortly beat a hasty retreat as I’m attacked by some seagulls eager to share in my snack.
A short while later I’m dropped off at Bristol train station where I’m left to get another overpriced train back to Milton Keynes (though I still don’t understand how it’s cheaper to get from Bristol to MK than from Newbury to MK).
A few days go by and I’m getting increasingly furious with the bus system which makes sod’s law look as well documented as if it were writ in the health and safety act (quite how mankind can come up with a system that drops you at your destination at the same time each time irrespective of what time you set off is beyond me).
However a ray of hope is delivered unto me by news from Graham, head gasket failure!
While this is about the worst thing that could happen to any motor vehicle, Graham is sorting it all out, wire to wire and I should have my bike back better than when I bought it… Soon…
A Final Goodbye
March 2, 2008 at 5:08 pm | Personal | No comment
The time had come; I’d said a hasty goodbye to the people at work and rushed home to see Kim before I left.
When I got in Kim seemed to be in surprisingly high spirits, after helping me pack my final effects we got stuck into something more wholesome.
A couple of hours later my dad pulled up into the drive (not really the romantic exit I’d imagined on my wheeled horse) and I threw my stuff in to his car.
I went back inside for the last time to say goodbye to Kim, our embrace lingered, each fleeting second delaying the inevitable departure and intensifying the emotions.
My shoulder was wet, she’d started welling up and I was not far behind.
“Goodbye Kim, I have to go.” I tried to sound comforting through my deep ragged breaths.
“No! You don’t have to; you can change your mind.” She clenched my hand tighter.
“I’ve got to Kim, I have to go.” I started pulling away.
As I made my way to the door Kim kept clutching my hand, resisting my movement, repeating over and over that I could change my mind and stay.
It seemed to take all my strength to take my hand from hers; I opened the door and walked backwards to the car, tears streaming down my face.
She pressed her nose up against the window and watched the car pull out of the drive; I waved a final goodbye and we were out of sight.
My phone rang moments later “Kim” it declared in its demanding tone, I waited for the ringing to stop and shut it off.
I turned it back on when we arrived in Newbury, I was bombarded with missed calls and texts, apparently I’d left something behind, but I couldn’t go back, I couldn’t leave her again.
I responded to her texts and even spoke on MSN for a while, but the theme was always the same, her asking me to visit, me saying no.
In reality there was nothing I’d have liked better than to go back to her and make it all better, but I’d made a promise to myself, I had to fulfil my dream.
The next day I explained to Kim that I wasn’t going to reply to her texts or emails any more, I had only replied before because ignoring her felt cowardly, but talking to her solved nothing and simply prevented her from moving on.
She claims I used her, she accuses me of leaving her for another woman, if these accusations are what I have to suffer to allow her to move on, so be it.
Now all I need to do is move on myself…
Two weeks into no job!
March 16, 2008 at 7:09 pm | Bike, Personal | No comment
Well it’s been two weeks now since I quit my job, left my girlfriend and moved to my dad’s house as a staging area.
I’ve been trying to prepare for the trip as best as possible, I’ve been buying god knows how much stuff (my ‘preparation budge’ is disappearing faster than I’d hoped!).
The repairs on my bike are going to cost more than I’d initially anticipated, £391 vs £250, and that doesn’t include things like indicators (some cheapo ones off ebay are in order I feel!), that’s simply to get it legal on the road.
My dad’s been away on holiday in Sri Lanka for the past week (he got offered a job out there just a few days ago as it happens!) and he’s scheduled to be away for another week.
I’ve set myself the challenge of not buying any food while he’s away, so I’ve been keeping myself alive on couscous, rice, pasta and the contents of the freezer (which was 5 oven chips, a VERY expired pack of pork chops and a rather tasty seabass!).
Since Alex came round last weekend and we got very drunk I’ve decided to abstain from drinking for the moment.
While living with Kim I got into the habit of drinking every single night and as soon as I stopped I realised that I had become a bit of an alcoholic.
Every evening after about six I would viscerally crave alcohol; the first few nights after I stopped I would just sit at my computer thinking “I can’t have a drink, I can’t have a drink, I want a drink, I can’t have a drink”.
On the third night it felt like I’d spent a month without drinking and broke down and allowed myself to have a Gin and Tonic, fortunately we were out of Gin, but I made myself an &T anyway!
It’s been a week now, and the cravings have all but abated, but I’m still finding it very hard to get to sleep at a normal time, hopefully this will resolve itself eventually!
I’ve been trying to learn Italian for the past week using a program called “Before you know it” which is basically a large set of digitised flash cards.
The learning method of flashcards works very well for me, but it’s very limited, it covers virtually no conjugation and the creators seem to have forgotten all about nouns and pronouns!
Still, I feel I’m making progress, and even if I have to go back to the audio method of learning (which I really don’t get on with, I’m very much a visual learner) if I stick with it I’m sure to get somewhere.
My days seem to whisk by these days and it certainly doesn’t feel like two weeks since I turned my life upside down.
The time has been split between researching incredibly boring things (such as HT bolts, *yawn*) , learning Italian, reading and wasting time on the internet, the latter of which seems to take up a disturbing portion of if…
I’ve finally decided that I’m not going to take a laptop on my trip, I’m going to simply write (shock horror) using a pen and paper and use my MP3 player as a dictafone.
I’ve managed to get the fundamentals of my paperwork through, namely my health insurance and my Carnet de Passage, once I’ve got my bike back (end of next week) and fixed it up with the panoply of sprockets, brake pads, chains, fork seals and other (supposedly) disposable parts there’ll be nothing stopping me going!
I ended up going with Navigator Travel insurance, mainly because they were the only people that covered areas that the FCO (Foreign Commonwealth Office) recommended against travelling to, but also because it’s run by one guy (not a fly by night, I’ve checked!) called Richard who seems bizarrely enough to have something of a passion for health insurance and spent absolutely ages with me on the phone explaining the situation regarding FCO areas and all the other innumerable questions I had for him.
I finally got round to fixing my panniers (from the crash back in December lol), Kiwibob sent the hinges through last week and after using a car-jack to get it back into shape (see photo) and using some Quiksteel to finish off the edge that had cracked open, it was good as new!
Back to Milton Keynes
March 27, 2008 at 8:32 pm | Personal | 1 comment
I wasn’t really cold, just my hands, the idea of three pairs of gloves hadn’t worked.
Bombing down the A34 at 1am is a fairly serene experience, so much so that I often had to be careful not to be distracted by the stars, as target fixation dictated that rather than poetically drifting towards the stars, in cruel reality I drifted towards oncoming traffic.
This trip was not quite so calm however, as after picking up my ‘repaired’ motorbike from Milton Keynes and whiling away a few hours with Chim, I set off into the night and discovered that my main headlight wasn’t working.
“Never fear!” I thought to myself as I switched to high-beam and immediately illuminated a bleary-eyed owl in a nearby tree instead of the road surface I’d intended.
Fortunately the scatter of light that made it to the ground was enough to crawl my way through the unilluminated sections of the A421 by positioning myself a couple of feet to the left of the cat’s eyes.
I reflected upon the day that was now technically yesterday, pleased at my own strength of will in not going to see Kim, despite being sorely tempted.
She had sent me a message on Facebook the previous night saying that things weren’t going well and that her mother was trying to stop her from going to the adult-literacy evening-class that I’d paid up for her. Fortunately Kim was ignoring her for the egocentric destructive old bat that she was.
The previous day I had daydreamed about playing the night in shining armour, turning up unannounced at her doorstep to see the all-encompassing grin that spread across her face as she leapt into my arms.
But I knew it would make nothing better, and would make everything worse.
At the beginning of the week I had been starting to feel depressed by loneliness and a fatalistic view of my trip that saw my loneliness pervading.
It would have been a wonderful few hours as Kim and I caught up in more ways than one.
Kim would have exercised her special talent of making me feel the most intelligent, capable, stable and important person in the world.
I may even have started to wonder why I was going away…
But in the end I would have gone, I would have had to suffer the heart-wrenching minutes a second time as she saw me slip through her fingers into the night and tried desperately to make me stay.
It would have taken her back to the beginning of the month, and all the progress she’d made in getting over me would have been shattered and for naught.
I knew all this, but still in my heart of hearts I wanted to go and see her, and make everything all better, if only for a while.
The night before I went to Milton Keynes I had a dream, I’ve been dreaming a lot lately, after the past 10 years with probably fewer than 10 dreams remembered I’ve had three in a row…
The dream started with me travelling on the coach to Milton Keynes, whiling away the hours reading, the next thing I knew I woke up (still within the dream) on the floor of Kim’s living room, with a thumping hangover and Kim and her mother standing over me disapprovingly.
For reasons I couldn’t fathom Kim was angry with me, and I knew that I had fallen from my pedestal of her opinion and that she would never respect me again.
Then I woke up for the second time.
The dream had served a very stark purpose, it effectively destroyed my subconscious desire to go and see Kim; I was free to visit Milton Keynes without the temptation to see her again.
The day in Milton Keynes was spent mostly in Ye Olde Swan in Woughton on the Green, which was only ever ‘my local’ in spirit, as my true local was ‘The Eagle’ where you were as likely to get a slit throat as a pint.
I whiled away an hour or so waiting for Chim by sitting in my favourite chair at my favourite table with a half of Fosters, alas I had come a day too early to get a half of Staropramen.
When Chim arrived I was standing outside the pub next to my bike, desperately trying to get it on to the centre stand so I could see how much coolant my leaky radiator had wept.
He grasped the bike firmly by the grab handles and irritatingly hefted it on to the stand first time, I made a mental note to step up my fitness regime.
We passed a couple of alcohol free hours talking about our respective life-changing-trips before heading off to town to play pool and catch a movie, though in fact the game of pool seemed to revolve primarily around us potting the white in increasingly complex and convoluted ways.
When the film had finished we walked slowly around the outside of the Xscape building, discussing the highlights and flaws of the film, before wishing each other luck and going our separate ways, we were unlikely to see each other for a very long time.
I coiled the back-breakingly heavy Almax chain into my rucksack, sat astride my bike and left Milton Keynes for the last time.
Reading people
September 23, 2008 at 5:26 pm | Personal, Philosophy | 2 comments
I am and always have been, notoriously bad at reading people, I don’t know what it is, if I believed in all this self-diagnosis bullshit people bandy around I’d say it was a mild case of aspergers, but as I don’t, I’ll say it’s probably simply one of those things I’m not good at.
Talking to my mate James (as opposed to my dad James, though he is in many ways my mate… I’m getting sidelined here..) he tells me how he’s constantly observing people, analysing what they say, how they say it.
Of course, I do this as well to a certain extent, but always at a very basic subconscious level (this ties right back into my big theme of conscious/subconscious but anyway), and although I can attempt to observe people like this at a conscious level, I’m very bad at it.
Maybe it’s a lack of practice, but the opportunity to practice is a rare beast to come by.
When engaged in conversation, especially more in depth ones that are likely to give revealing information I’m never thinking about the other person…
Their argument maybe, but usually I’m even more self absorbed than that, thinking about my argument, my responses…
In fact, that makes sense… I’m thinking about how the other person is likely to interpret my responses, and how best to express my opinions/feelings without being misunderstood.
Maybe I simple need to find a balance between reading myself as others see me and trying to read others.
Fine tuning ones mental priorities and thought processes is never an easy business, and my propensity to “unthought” (I love newspeak) makes it all the more difficult to change my patterns in the fleeting moments of clarity.
Take for example Melahat, the girl I spent quite a few days with over the past 10-11 days.
At various points during each day my subconscious would alert me to various actions on her part that could be interpreted as ‘interest’ or generally worthy of deeper analysis.
And, as is normal for me, I would take the sum total of these incidents and weigh them up against their negative counterparts, and try and decide what in fact she was thinking.
But really a logical approach generally fails miserably unless you have quite fantastic insight (which I clearly don’t), and I get the idea I should be ‘feeling’ things more.
A differing culture doesn’t help matters, and I was very interested to engage Melahat in a discussion about the Turkish dating scene.
The conversation stemmed from a discussion me and (I think, again James) were have about how most of the trepidation about ‘making a move’ comes not from fear of your own embarassment, but infact an unwillingness to put the other person in a socially awkward and embassing situation, and also the idea that subsequently the girl will then feel uncomfortable around the guy.
Our conclusion on the last effect was that this stemmed from a misapprehension on the part of most girls that after a guy has asked them out once, he will never cease hounding them, my mate agreed.
I mentioned this to Melahat.
“Oh no, not in Turkey!”
“No?”
“No, the guy will ask again and again, no matter how many times you say no!”
“Wow.. what a pain…”
We went on to discuss the dissimilarities in the subtle nature of the game.
“In Turkey, it’s quite common for a guy to ask a girl out on two or three dates, that are entirely platonic and then on the third or fourth date, say ‘I love you, what do you think about that?”
“Really? Wow, if I guy did that in England the girl would think he was completely mad!”
I got the impression that Turks were generally a lot more up front with their emotions, where further west we’re generally fear our own emotions and in some twisted subconscious way thinking that being in love with someone is a weakness, dependence is a weakness, to be strong you have to be independent, if you’re independent you don’t need anyone, if you don’t need anyone you can’t be in love.
I envy the Turks for that freedom and shall champion it whenever I can…
Still, I never did ‘make a move’ as I didn’t want to spoil the friendship Melahat and I had and from various comments I become convinced of the opinion that she felt the same way.
Excuses, will be the first thing running through your mind I should imagine, retroactively changing my feelings to protect myself, ‘Pfft, I didn’t want that anyway…’.
And that’s what I’ve told myself when I’ve felt that before, as I’ve had it drilled into me (by peers and media) that I should want every single attractive girl that I interact with, but… (even though I certainly wouldn’t be averse to such opportunities should they present themselves) I really don’t see the point most of the time, I’m simply happy to be around nice people.
I do fear that it’ll be something I regret in later life, but… Maybe by that point I’ll have matured enough to fully ignore the ‘notches on the bedpost’ mentality that seems to pervade male society at the moment….
Stars
January 20, 2009 at 3:19 am | Personal, Philosophy | 3 comments
I exhale gently and look at the stars.
I see so few now, before the sky was full of them.
That’s what I miss, the stars.
Kashmir, Baluchistan, anywhere where there wasn’t enough artificial light I could see them all.
People tell me the Milky Way in the norther hemisphere pales in comparison to what you can see in the southern hemisphere; it’s a shame I didn’t get to see it.
Identity is a fickle thing, drawn from what you do, but they say it’s who you are.
But, unless you keep doing the same thing you have to draw your identity from something within, otherwise your identity will keep changing.
A cliche, to travel to ‘find yourself’.
While you’re travelling you are a traveller, you talk to other travellers and often identify with them, but if you’re not someone who’s going to travel for the rest of their lives you’re just in a state of change.
Hopefully you come out of that state with some epiphany about who you are, what you want to do; from seeing so many different people gain some insight into yourself.
But I imagine that more often than not you’re simply left with more questions than you started with, completely failing to find the answers and fulfilment you were looking for.
Suddenly you’re thrown back into normality, it feels all the more unreal for it, what was once familiar seems alien, even exhilarating but at the same time frightening.
What do you do next?
The same choices you escaped from were waiting in the wings, they ask you the same questions for you to answer with even less conviction than before.
Of all the things I learned and experienced, the most important, the most like the epiphany I was seeking was that people are far more important than I believed.
I haven’t turned into a philanthropist all of a sudden.
Even though when I gave a small Pakistani girl a pen only for it to be snatched away by her father, ‘She has no need for a pen’, shocked me, it’s not my calling.
Most people you meet are inconsequential, but a few are very important.
They’re not even the people you might expect, many friends are like hobbies, a way to pass the time but ultimately meaningless.
Identifying the people that are important and dedicating them the consciousness they deserve is even more so.
Expecting your important people to present themselves to you is foolishness.
Though I am blessed enough to have met a few of my important people, most of them I couldn’t hang on to and a search for more is my next project.
What I find strange is how little effort is put into the people we meet, how much of a role serendipity plays in such an important part of our lives.
We choose what books with read with great care as to read a dull book would be a waste of time.
But we don’t take anywhere near as much care or put nearly as much thought into the people we spend our time with.
I’m sorry this post doesn’t make much sense if you’ve had no source of contact with me other than this blog, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt in writing this blog it’s to write what I want to write about, rather than what’s most appropriate.
-