Category: General

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09/10/2002 Archived Entry: “Furry Gerbiloons”

Lol. That’s sick…..

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09/10/2002 Archived Entry: “I can hear it calling you”

So. I’m off to Ireland. I managed to find my Driving Licence. Sorted out all the things I need to take to Ireland, I think. Unfortunately I’m now feeling headachey (although it may just be tiredness), and my sore throat is failing to be defeated by drugs or vast quantities of water.

On the other hand, I should have given my body a nice flush through….I’ve drunk probably several litres of water – I’m hoping that I’m not going to get spectacularly ill. I’ve still got my appetite[1], which normally vapourises completely if I’m going to be ill.

Anyway, so. You may get one more entry before I run and flee this country. I’m told by Aisling that there’s actually more than just her and Aoife over in Ireland….this, obviously, came as a shock to me….Anyway.

[1]What little of it I’ve had recently, anyway.

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09/09/2002 Archived Entry: “Crying.”

Crying. That’s all.

I want my bike. I want my life to be nice. I just want it to be nice. Is that too much to ask?

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09/09/2002 Archived Entry: “Shrinkwrapped”

You aren’t sure where you came from. Perhaps your sire did an embrace and run. Or maybe your sire was an outcast himself. Either way, your powers are unique and really don’t belong to any clan…or maybe a little from each. Because you of these circumstances, you aren’t really sure where you belong. You tend to wander and do a bit of soul searching in your eternal life. Maybe some day…you have a while after all

What Vampire Clan Do You Belong To?

Test Created By

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09/08/2002 Archived Entry: “Our hero’s fallen down again.”

So. I’m going to first transcribe what I wrote in this pad here [waves pad] and then finish off the diary entry. So. It’ll probably be a bit disjointed, oh and full of mistakes because I’m completely shattered. As in I had trouble remembering if it was Egg Fried Rice I wanted with my takeaway. I had Rachel’s order written down….which was good.

4:40 pm, Sunday 8th August.

M5, Strensham Motorway Services. It’s raining, again. I’ve just had both a very good and a very bad weekend. I’m very tired and I wish deeply that I was covering the final 50 miles home. Not, as I actually am, sat with a (£1.39) bottle of powerade (I hate services, really really hate ’em) waiting for the RAC to turn up (up to 2 hours wait apparently).

Feeling increasingly depressed. Lack of sleep and a fun/stressful/annoying weekend are making me cranky. The prospect of yet another journey ending on the back of an RAC truck looming – and the letter sure to follow…

Dear Miss Elliott,

We have noticed that you use the RAC’s services an awful lot. We’d like to remind you that we aren’t a taxi service, and we’re going to do this by cancelling our cover

God I hope they don’t.

*sigh*

There’s an alarm here which keeps going of. I really feel like crying. As I watch other people with nicer bike and more money turning up, not limping into the services like some lame dog about to be put down.

Christ I’m tired.

So. It was all going well. I left Bristol at about 5 (I think) having (hopefully) put Lauren’s bike back together and having got the business plan into a state where I was reasonably happy to leave it [the alarm, incidentally, is still going off]. Away I went, I’d looked at the weather forecast – occasional showers becoming heavy later.

So, I put on my all weather cordura, hopped onto claire (the name seems to fit) and headed down the motorway. M5, M42, A42, A52, short twiddly bit.

I really am very tired. I’m actually shaking. I wonder if I should eat something. Hah, fuck it.

So, I’m heading down the M5, *really* enjoying myself. Hairing along, the bike doing an indicated 75 (it didn’t seem to want to try for faster – and I was happy enough just keeping with the traffic). Up ahead I see a traffic jam, not a problem. Filtering through the traffic, goddess it felt good. The bike’s noisyness seemingly keeping all but the most stupid of drivers from trying to block me off.

Flying, that the experience it most reminds me of. Piloting a plane – that is better – but filtering and riding a bkie. Fantastic.

Then the rain started. And it kept coming and getting harder and harder. And the sky got darker and darker.

And then the bike had a quick go at killing me. It was a fast corner, being a motorway, outside lane, car close behind. Engine stops. The bike dives onto it’s front forks. I can feel the chain going ‘yank’ on the gearbox, the back wheel skitters slightly, and then the engine starts again. Suddenly putting all of it’s 21 horses back through the back wheel. The whole bike kicks. I wobble slightly and when everything’s settled again move into the middle lane – easing off the speed. Okay. We’re okay.

Hrm, maybe it’s low on fuel. Look at the mileometer, “nah, not covered enough miles yet”.

It doesn’t happen again. I cruise up the motorway, and then there’s another cough from the engine.

Okay, now I’m a bit worried, but there’s a service station in a few miles….and I pull off there for a break. Not too worried, mostly thinking about food.

Okay, here’s a question. How much did this meal cost?

• Mini Ham and Cheese Baguette (they didn’t call it mini, but it certainly was)
• Coffee
• Packet of crisps
• Danish type pastryoid thing
• Apple juice (100 mls)

Go on, guess. Go on. Nearly 9 pounds. 9. that’s Nine. They weren’t even particularly nice. This is why I hate services. It turned out that I’d not used (and would not actually use) that much worth of petrol to get to Nottingham.

Anyway, I stopped for a break. And when I came out I checked the bike over…decreed that it was a bit low on petrol but that nothing else seemed wrong and attempted to kick start it. “nuts” I didn’t say. The kickstart wasn’t working. So I ran around like a stupid arse, got it going and rode to the Fuel area of the service station, bunged in 6 quid’s worth of fuel (yes, that’s 6, substantially less than my meal for one cost).

Incidentally, in case I hadn’t mentioned, it’s still raining.

Repeated the MZ Get fit technique….[The RAC man has just been….and gone. The bike will start, with a jump start, but won’t actually stay running]. So, where was I? There I was at 30,000 feet. No, sorry, wrong story. (Mood swings….). I can’t do this again, the whole unreliable bike thing. On top off everything else? It’s just too much. I have enough to think about without this. (Just got someone to take a photo – so you can all enjoy Kate broken down Strensham services – it goes with Kate’s bike in pieces on the A42).

Anyway, got the bike started with a fair bit of heaving and running around and headed for ‘The NORTH’ as it says on the signs.

The bike was definately ill now, with a maximum speed of around 60mph. It’s still raining, it’s dark and the rain has penitrated my summer gloves (I couldn’t find my winter ones when I left). I pull into another service area and desperately check the water trap come filter. There’s no water in it. I’m really frustrated, but I decide to continue to Nottingham.

And then the rain finally wins. Hein Gerick’s finest has put up a good fight, but it’s an unwinnable battle. I can feel the cold rain on the back of my legs, and on my arms. I’m cold and wet. I’m deadly tired, I’m really struggling to keep this bike on the road at times, every time I see a corner looming I fear that I’m actually going to loose the back of the bike and not be awake enough to hold it up. The top speed is dropping, it’s now down to just below 60. Finally I pick out ‘A52’ on a sign. The depressive mist which has settled over me lifts, I’m actually only about 25 minutes from [Note written as I transcribe. It appears the graphics card drivers now can’t cope with me typing and it’s stopping me playing music. Not good in my current state]. Pari’s house. I come off the motorway, round the roundabout and then tiredness makes me make a mistake. The first of several.

I come off the roundabout at the wrong junction, but not just any junction, the one back onto the Motorway….One turning wrong and I’m heading further away from where I want to be. I hold in tears of frustration, and concentrate on logic. “It’s only one junction, I’ll just turn around and come back”.

I get to the next junction and realise I’m not really fit to ride on the motorway anymore. It probably only took 10 minutes, but they were 10 minutes taking me away from my destination and it feels like 10 hours. The rain is still coming down fast and the bike, air cooled and unhappy as it is gets unhappier. It doesn’t want to stay running and every last bit of my concentration is now on staying on the bike and keeping the bike on the road. I’m lost, stressed, it’s dark, I’m tired and my bike feels like it’s going to give up at any point.

So, I come off the motorway and head in towards Nottingham, thinking that the A52’s a pretty big road and I’m sure to be able to find it. After about 20 minutes, in which I get increasingly stressed and have to turn around several times, I start seeing it on sign posts. Woo! I think. And eventually I get on to it, find the road I need and turn off. Only I don’t realise I’m facing the wrong way. [inside the alarm is going off, outside it’s pissing with rain. Woo. Where is this RAC bloke?]

[Now in the porchy-type bit outside the service station watching someone kick start a bike in the rain. They have my sympathy]

[Funny, they said about 10 minutes, it’s been about 30….]

I find a garage and ask directions, I’ve been riding around totally confused for about 30 minutes now. That’s 50 minutes of riding around Nottingham, soaked through, cold, tired, lost and desperately trying to keep my bike running. Apparently I’m on the right road, just on the wrong side of the A52. I’m only (and have been only) about 5 minutes ride away from Pari’s house (for some time).

[End of transcribed from handwritten notes section]

So, I finally get there…..and basically, I want to collapse. If they were that kind of people I’d’ve gone for a cuddle and a cup of tea. Instead we get changed and go out for a curry. Relief gives me enough energy to cope. I go out for a curry and we spend a really nice evening chatting, chatting and chatting. I remember why I liked my university friends so much. I just get on with them. We just mesh. We talk about stupid stuff, we babble incessantly about the most innane things. We just chat. And it gets to 2 am and Cassie reminds us of the party the next day. Bed we cry, and head in that direction.

Despite sleeping on a duvet on the floor, I got a fantastic night, and morning’s sleep. Yes indeed. Slept until midday. Goddess did I need it. Of course the next day was meeting Pari’s freinds. Meeting people, always stressful, especially when you’re unsure if they know about you, what they know about you, and so on. And I’m not exactly famed for being good at meeting people anyway. But it was actually fun, I had a good time and didn’t embaress Pari too much, or weird his friends out too much, I don’t think.

Then came heading back, discovering the large chip in the coating on the back of my helmet which suggests it’s taken a very hard knock, and now needs replacement – unfortunately I can’t afford it atm, so I just won’t ride my bike I guess. Putting Pari’s desk together (we feared the idea of Pari doing DIY), unfortunately, I didn’t entirely realise we weren’t heading straight over to the party / Paul’s house, so I got changed into my (wet) bike gear, ready for taking the bike over. My memories of the previous night having faded somewhat, I reckoned it was probably that it’d got very wet and was thus very unhappy. Anyway, we eventually got over to the party.

Photos, I may put up later. There are “quite a few”, including, yes, some of me. Unfortunately. Remarkably, I didn’t drink anything (apart from Lemonade), managed to chat to people and have a really good time. I didn’t mingle much with Paul’s friends – but I always find new people scary, and I did kind of mingle a little bit. It didn’t help that one of them had a very strong accent, and I’m not good with accents. Accents and music and lots of people talking and I’m not gonna hear a word of it. Anyway, so. Adam, who I’ve not seen since coming out, well, he kept looking at me. He didn’t say anything, but he did keep looking at me, sort of sideways, which freaked me out a bit.

The party was good, and I only became incredibly neurotic about my appearance after I’d left to go to the house I was sleeping in. And looked in a mirror.

So, the next morning came around, i.e. this morning, and I got up, got dressed, and headed back to Pauls for brekkie (ta to Vicki (it is Vicki isn’t it?) for the bed) – and for bike fixation. So I looked at the bike. I changed the plug (fouled), emptied the carb (fair amount of crap), and decreed that it would get me home (a statment which later proved false). The problem being that the faults would only become apparent when the bike was moving. Pari managed to get various pronouns wrong leading to me wanting to kill him, wanting to cry, wanting to not be there, wishing I’d not gone, wishing I’d left the night before, wishing he’d left the night before, wishing I wasn’t TS, wishing I didn’t care as much as I do about being TS, wishing I knew who knew I was TS, wishing I wasn’t quite so fucking obviously TS.

After breakfast everyone else headed off for a walk, I debated the possibility of calling my friend Peter, who lives in Nottingham and decided I’d rather head home, and thereby avoid having to ride a possibly ill bike in the dark.

So I did.

It imidiately became apparent that what I’d done hadn’t fixed the bike. And the bike was progressively getting less happy.

I stopped by the side of the A42. And it was at this point I first smelt melting plastic. Now, there’s only plastic insulation and the battery, and that’s it. Unfortunately I didn’t think to check that the smell was coming from the battery, but I did look at the bike and I felt the battery and thought “hrm, a trifle warm”.

Then I noticed that one of the leads to the coil looked like it might be shorting against the bottom of the seat, unfortunately, without a 13mm spanner (which appears to have walked from my toolkit) I couldn’t take the seat off to look at the wiring, but I tweaked it round so it wasn’t touching. Decided that must be it and headed off.

It wasn’t it.

I limped, painfully and slowly down the A42, onto the M42 and finally onto the M5. At Strentsham I finally gave in to my desire to have a rest, I knew I only had 50 miles left, but I’d spent the last 20 moving and squirming in my seat. And my top speed was now down to about 50, unless I really caned it, in which case I could get a very vibratey 60 in 4th gear (moving into 5th and the bike would go back into it’s stall-run-stall-run routine, but at max revs it seemed to just about keep going).

So, I stopped. And I got off. And I thought “fucking hell, what’s that smell”. Then I thought, I’ll get my stuff off the bike, then I’ll look and see if it’s on fire. So I unbungeed my bag, and went to take the sidepanel off. It was hot. I looked under the sidepanel, and my little lead acid battery? Top warped from heat, smoke/steam coming out of it, hideous acid smells. I pulled the negative connector off, put the panel back on. Laughed manically and went in to the services, where I had another extorionately expensive cup of coffee and a scone.

Three quid later and a lot of running around the carpark with “Battery Bypass” and “ignition” options tried I called the RAC. Now, what happened when that first RAC bloke came in a touch more detail was…connect battery. Ignition lights don’t come on. Start to kick over the bike. Kickstart stops working again, Hit kickstart with hammer. Hit it again, and again, and again, and oh, yes, it’s working. Lights come on. Start bike. Try and ride off. Bike dies.

Repeat, go to start bike, kick, kick, kick BANG!

Entire carpark looks in my direction. RAC bloke looks shocked and is looking down.

Kate: “What the hell was that!”

RAC Bloke: “I’ve no idea, maybe clearing something out”

There’s no smoke, no fuses have blown, and I’m not on the side of the bike with the electrics so I have to go with the fact that maybe he’s right.

Bike starts, I put all my gear on, try to ride off, it dies. He puts the bike up for recovery.

So, I head home in a recovery truck again. Although, to make matters more amusing, the recovery truck broke down, it got us here, and the guy decided to head back to the depot in it, it’s just one of it’s injectors was pouring diesel out instead of into the engine. Never mind……

I’m just saying “fuck it all” right now. I’m going on holiday next week. Screw the bike, screw my helmet, screw it all. What does it matter? It’s only my life.

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09/06/2002 Archived Entry: “Give me your matches ‘cos I like to burn stuff”

Argh! Damnit. I wanted to put some laundry on but I’ve just remembered that our washing machine has started tripping our RCD. And that happening in the middle of the night’d be bad. Which is incredibly annoying ‘cos it means I can’t put the laundry on until tomorrow morning. Gah.

Replies: 2 comments

Well, dressing gown only (that’ll go in the whites wash later).

God am I sad or what? I’m discussing my *laundry* on the web ffs….Now, I need to go and do something rebelious to make up for it.

Posted by Kate E @ 09/06/2002 11:00 AM GMT

Does this mean you’ll have to spend the morning nekkid? ;-)

Posted by Peter @ 09/06/2002 07:50 AM GMT

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09/05/2002 Archived Entry: “So turn off your smoke machine and Marshall stack”

i have issues. but i also recognise this fact and do what i can to resolve those issues. i may have spent a long time letting those issues control me, but now i’m ready to take the upper hand and wonder about the world around me. i’m getting to be well-balanced, but i’m not quite there yet.

how mad are you?

this quiz was made by piksy

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09/05/2002 Archived Entry: “No subject, just…”

If you close your mouth the words stop just falling out like that

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09/04/2002 Archived Entry: “Chain of Fools”

So, my bikes up and running again – thanks to some assistance from lauren (soldering the floats back onto the carb takes more than one hand if you’re not really willing to take the carb off the bike). Went out for a long ride down to Weston – and get this – the only thing that went wrong (with the bike) was a blown indicator bulb.

Astounding.

I actually had a really, really nice ride – I had lauren pillion which makes the handling “a bit hairy”, but apart from some wild zigzags at low speed I had a nice ride. Coming back was the best, just swooping along quiet A roads. Although having dropped lauren off there was a moment of terror when I rounded a corner and remembered that there’s a big dip in the road (a short section of subsidence) which is still in the corner. As the bike left the ground I thought “oh shit, I’m gonna die”. But I didn’t…..

The bike still sounds appauling, third still doesn’t work and the engine is idling too low [which lead to some ‘interesting’ moments as I was braking and keeping the throttle open (one particularly exciting moment right at the start of the journey on the steep hill coming away from my friends house)] and running too lean (fuel wise), but hey, who cares. Hopefully the journey up to Nottingham will be okay.

It’s a long way on a not previously reliable bike. Lets hope that she’s going to go with it. I think, though I’m not sure, that she’s called Claire (Short for Clairol, as in the shampoo, because she sounds like a hairdrier). I think I’m starting to get used to some of her quirks now.

Like the tendancy for the rear suspension to do “odd” things in corners. And the front suspension being so soft. And the bouncing. And the vibrations. And the fact that third will sometimes work if you get it *just* right (although you have to endure several seconds of juddering before it’ll engage properly). But still…. Anyway, you’re probably bored of my ramblings. And to be honest I should get to bed.

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09/03/2002 Archived Entry: “That boy needs therapy”

I just had the interesting experience of being picked on ‘cos I’m a dyke. Some little oik through a half empty can of coke at me….which wasn’t exactly fun. Around where Jas and Lauren live….not good.

Anyway….playing with my RiscPC