Hell and high water!

Well that was an intersting day. Captain Bill was booked to come over and continue welding the trailer, but at 9am it was still raining and the gales were still howling, so I telephoned him to call it off. He came up with a plan. How about doing some more work on the Bulto - this is my trials bike which required a new big end some months ago, and Bill agreed to help me. So I set off to Fyvie first of all to complain once again to the Doc about the severe pain in my shoulders, had to wait half an hour to see her, then she told me there was nothing wrong with my arms, so that was a waste of time but hey, I'm used to that now, this has been going on for four years. Carried on to Turra then out to the Foggie road which was closed at the bridge as a car had either gone off the bridge into the river, or there was deep water over the bridge - I couldn't really understand the council worker who was telling everyone to turn back. So I headed out to Huntly, thinking I'd just nip up to Keith then cut across country to Bills. Got as far as the Bognie Arms and the road was closed, diversion towards Banff. Some of the roads that were still open were flooded in places, and I did consider the foolhardiness of my journey several times, but the thought of working on the Bulto spurred me on. When I got to Marnoch, that road was closed too, so I headed north to Cornhill where I was finally able to get onto the Keith road and made it to Bills. A bit of progress was made, and I think another couple of trips should see it back together....just hope I can remember how to hitch it all up and find where I put the carb and stuff. Anyway, time to come home after a few freezing hours in the workshop and then the snow kicked off. Flooded roads in the dark are bad enough but with a complete white out at times, I'm lucky I didn't land in a ditch. This is the first lot of snow I've encountered with my 'new' (new to me, not brand new) car, and let's just say I thought I was in for a long walk! Some snow tyres will be ordered ASAP. Then I thought I might run out of petrol as I hadn't topped up in Aberdeen (with the cheap Asda stuff) 'cos I didn't anticipate driving round half of Scotland today. Made it back though, safe and sound.

The shed site is flooded, and boy, I mean FLOODED. 11 tonnes of sandy ballast are now deposited half on the driveway and half on the verge, with huge muddy ruts everywhere, left by the huge Lovies truck as it got bogged down and the driver burnt a bit of rubber. It was delivered yesterday in the torrential rain. He tried to reverse all the way down the drive but got stuck, so we (I) made an executive decision to leave it up by the top gate, which is a long walk with a full wheelbarrow. At least I should end up slim and sylphlike. Which reminds me, the Doc asked if I'm eating ok. Is she partially sighted! Look at me, of course I'm eating OK!