It was a weekend for cleaning the house, and generally getting a lot of little things done.
No dirty laundry though, my Chinese Laundry lady takes care of that for me. My hands smell of bleach and fake green apples, and are wrinkled from washing dishes. The walls and counter tops in my kitchen sparkle. (Or at least they would if I didn’t live in an old unrenovated flat with formica counter tops. So no sparkling, but they sure are clean.)
Last night I rebuilt the carburettor on the little scoot. It’s a very bad sign when you find a stinking mix of rusty water & petrol in the float bowl. I drained off most of the petrol in the bottom of the tank, but on reassembling the bike today it didn’t start. I fear the petrol has become contaminated. I’ll have to drain out and completely clean the tank, and probably dismantle the carburettor again. I enjoy doing mechanical work, but it’s messy and smelly, and I have both plenty of cash and far better things to do with my time so perhaps at some point this week I’ll just decide the Scootling guys can do it for me and give them a call.
It’s a fun little bike, perfect for my commute. Though I know I should be walking, after all I did take this flat – which, I must say, doesn’t entirely agree with my aesthetic sensibilities – just so I could be nice and close to the office.
I was offered a 1986 Honda VFR700F, in slightly better condition, but otherwise just like the one I owned 7 or 8 years ago – so from well before the disaster – it was very tempting, in fact so tempting that if I had anything even remotely resembling good parking, I would have gone for it. I loved that bike, it was a monster in carefully constructed red, white & blue sheep’s clothing.
The only bike I ever felt comfortable enough on to break the double ton. Man, now that’ll make your hands shake. So much fun.
Perhaps best kept for those few years in your late teens and early twenties when you have no brain in your head, when you think you’re fully grown but are utterly wrong. Those heady bullet-proof days. The days for driving too fast, drinking too much, and shagging so many people they all just turn into a fast whirling blur of half-remembered faces with long forgotten names.
And then you hit about 25, your brain finishes maturing, and you realise that contrary to appearances, you were still a child.
I just don’t quite know how I managed to pull off some of that shit and live.
A few years later, I see people, of varying ages, who still indulge some of these behaviours, and I just feel sorry for them. (I’m sure everyone knows a friend who likes to speed just a little too much? Or who always drinks half a dozen more beers than everyone else? Or who is a filthy slut with a rotting crotch?)
Still, I think it would be nice to be the child I was at that time, just for a while. But how do you avoid getting lost?
So tonight, when I’ve cleaned the stove, and vacuumed the carpets, perhaps I’ll have a glass of nice scotch, and maybe a bowl of something special, and remember how great some of those times were, and how glad I am that they are, except for the odd crazy and welcome weekend, in the past.
You’re welcome to join me in reminiscing. And as this took an unexpected turn, and became rather more of a stream-of-consciousness rant than I intended, you’re equally welcome to tell me that I’m completely off base, that it’s not possible to drive too fast, or drink too much, or sleep around like a dirty whore, uh, too much, and perhaps you could even imply that perhaps I’ve been inhaling cleaning product and petrol fumes all day and it’s affected my reasoning?
