Why me Oh Lord?

It’s 6:30 am and there’s bike funeral I have to go to at Numurkah, so it’s out of the garage, down the driveway and straight into the rain. It’s cold rain too. Not a gentle warm rain, but water driven by the wind, driven hard and horizontal. My hands were warm when I put the gloves on, but that doesn’t last long, by the time I get to Dorset Rd. they are cold and wet; encased in sodden gloves. Road works in Dorset Rd, three different sites and all involving a ditch right across the road, which is covered with a steel plate. Countless tyres have polished the plate so it is slippery anyway and it is also now covered with a film of water, which only adds to the slip factor. There is a twenty-minute wait at the middle ditch while the men sit around and decide what to do next
By the time I am through the last of the road works, my hand have gone to frozen and my feet are cold and it’s getting no warmer as the days progresses. Ride on brave heart. On to Lilydale without any more disasters except I have now lost my hands and my feet have gone to frozen. Onward, ever onward the intrepid hero rides and finally makes it to Yarra Junction, where the hands have gone to non-existent, the feet have frozen and the face is cold. By the time Dixon’s Creek in near the feet have joined the hands in some parallel universe, the face is frozen, the body is cold and the fog has come down and I can’t see where I am going.
Riding very slowly, I eventually get to the top of Mt Slide and find that the timber jinkers have come out of the forest yesterday and left the road covered in slippery wet clay. So here I go, bottom gear because I can’t see where I’m going, both none existent feet out so I don’t fall over, desperately trying not to fall off. This goes on as far as Yea where the fog lifts and the sun comes out and I stop for the sort of break that gentlemen don’t discuss in the presence of ladies. It occurs to me to look at the time and I suddenly realize just how far behind schedule I am. Right, nothing for it but to open the bike out a bit. So I get back on, fire it up and open her out a bit. Actually I opened it out quite a lot. It’s a big bike and a sports tourer, so it’s no sluggard. Most of the time the throttle was wide open and worry about the corners when I get there. I slowed to about 160 through Trawool and felt something hit my boot. I didn’t know what it was but the bike was still going so I’ll worry about it later, probably just an insect anyway.
Wound it out again and went on; through Seymour, slowed down there, the coppers get busy over that way and out onto the Goulburn Valley highway. Up to about 200 there trying to make up time. Check the fuel gauge and its running a bit low, all this fast stuff really pokes holes in fuel tanks. Kialla is coming up soon; I’ll refuel there. Swing into the service station and switch off. Look for the keys to switch off. Can’t find the keys. Wonders about the insect that hit my boot at Trawool. Can’t go back and look for it now. If the key and the lock are worn enough to fall out, I wonder if another key would open the tank? Worth a try and a spare locker key does, Switch off the engine with the kill switch to refuel, hit the starter button and she fires up once more.
Now comes the decision time. If I go on to the funeral and switch the engine off with the kill switch again, by the time the service is over, I’ll have a flat battery. I could disconnect the battery lead, but the tools are under the seat and I need the key to unlock the seat There is a spare key and I know exactly where it is. Hanging on a nail in the garage at home. Nothing to be done except turn round and go home. Couple of minutes down the road, I wonder if the lock is so worn that keys fall out, is it worn enough to let another key turn it on. Pull over and try it out. Yes the same key that opened the petrol tank turns the ignition off. Beauty. So I turn the ignition on again, except that the key won’t turn the lock on. Nothing for it but to park the bike, hitch into Shepparton and get to my sisters place and hope they have arrived back from England or where ever it was they went.
Take off the helmet and the gloves and push the big heavy bike up a farm driveway to the house. Watch as the helmet falls off the bike and lands in a mud puddle. Get to the house and find there’s no one home, so I don’t know whose farm I am leaving my bike at. Leave the bike under a tree and walk back along the driveway. Half way up the drive, remember my glasses, which are back at the bike. I’ll need those glasses to read the name on the letterbox at the gateway. Walk back down the driveway, pick up the glasses and start again. Get to the gateway and there’s no name on the letterbox and no mail in it either. OK it’s the gateway between the dead cat and the sign for the Euroa turn off. Hitch a ride to Shepparton and yes, my sister had come back from England. At last a few thing were going my way.
Better get a message to the mates to let them know I wasn’t coming after all. Rang the local copper who was out directing traffic for a funeral in town that day. Yes, that was the funeral I had intended being at. Rang the local undertaker who was out at a funeral and couldn’t be contacted. Finally rang the local store who knew all about the funeral and the mourners would be coming back to the hall next door for a bite to eat afterwards. Yes, he’d be happy to pass a message on to the bikers who were there. OK, so they wont be worried about me. Now find the bike shop, which fortunately was owned and run by an ex pupil of my brother-in-law. So he would oblige. Get down there and wait till a mechanic had finished a job before we get into the van and drive out to the farm.
The bike was too tall to fit into the back of the van, so the top box had to come off and the handlebars swung down. We loaded up and went to a locksmith in Shepparton, who crawled over, under and through the bike, trying to get a look at the ignition lock. He couldn’t, so it went back to the bike shop and the headlight came out, the ignition was disconnected and the lock withdrawn and returned to the locksmith. He saw the numbers on the side of the barrel and cut the key to that pattern, which would have been fine if the numbers had been the key code, Unfortunately they were the Suzuki part numbers for the ignition lock, so the barrel had to come out and the key code determined by the pins. Eventually this happened and the barrel was returned to the body and the whole lock, now operational, went back to the bike shop. The bike was put back together and I rode back home. Next day I went to fill up and the new key wouldn’t open the petrol cap.Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed