Catching up!

Sorry about the lack on updates recently, you know how it is, nothing happens, then it all goes off at once. Might as well start at the start with last Saturday, when I was up at the crack of dawn, well, 6.30AM which is plenty early enough for me. By the time the animals were fed and watered, and I had cleaned the car out (which took longer than expected) Fido and Iain had arrived and we were off to Edinburgh by 9am. Just as we got through the two gates and out of the farm, I realised I'd left my moby by the computer, being so young and so fit I sprinted back and got it. Only 15mins behind schedule now. Somewhere along the A90 the weather became appalling with heavy, blustery showers causing visibility to drop greatly, along with our speed. Just north of Dunfermline there was a nasty accident on the other side of the road, which slowed the southbound traffic for some reason (rubber neckers probably), and then, nearly at the bridge, we were treated to some surprise roadworks. It was about 12ish by then, which was the time I had arranged to meet up with the Bikeshite.com crew and a few others so the phone started ringing (good job I went back for it) and I got told off for not being there! For the first time in about four years we found the way to the show without getting lost, only to be greeted by a numpty on the car park gate who tried to get me to pay £3 for parking - not likely sonny, see this here? It's called a PASS so stand aside, GBC is coming through!

Good old Shorty had arranged to meet me at the gate 4, but I told him we were going in at gate 5, then I realised it was actually gate 4....so his legs are a little bit shorter now! His section of the VMCC "Central Scotland", was where Cubbie was displayed, along with some other not-quite-so-good-looking-but-nice-enough-I-suppose old bikes, and throughout the day John, Wildy and Malphy from Bikeshite.com popped along to say hello, as did Gino and Kawa from the Scottish classic club. Even though, as the name suggests, Kawa is a fan of the big green Jap bikes, he is a very nice man. well he must be 'cos he donated a Cubbie engine to the Cubbies Counties fund! Thank you Kawa. Young Timmy the Twister Hastings - an up-and-coming racer laddy from Falkirk took the time to pose with Cubbie for a photo-op, and I think his Dad Tony, was quite taken with the little Triumph. Timmy was rushing off after that to fly out to Spain for testing and his first big race of the season. In fact, just got an update on his progress - Catalunya is where he is, a very fast circuit apparently (they're all fast to me) where his 125 GP bike is hitting 135mph. Tim is the fastest in his team, lapping at 2.00.6secs, but needs to cut that down by another 3 secs, so good luck loon! Rick Parkington (my opposite number from another magazine that features old Brit bikes, can you guess what it is yet?) also had a chat and gave Cubbie a thorough inspection - I think he was secretly impressed with the quality of the Hammerite paint.

Overall it was a great day, I managed to fit in all the socialising along with my work - even though I kept Iain, Fido and Mrs BC waiting by about an hour and a half at the end. There will be a 3 page spread (that's different to a page 3 spread in case you're wondering) in the next edition of CBG so you can see just how hard I was working to get all that info!

So that was Saturday, and on Sunday I was off to Glasgow for a work briefing. No way I wanted to drive all that way after trekking down to Edinburgh the previous day, so caught the train from Dyce. Long story short, met up with a colleague, Morag, who kept me waiting for my tea, as did another colleague, Doris, then we couldn't find a decent looking restaurant and ended up traipsing round the streets of Glasgow in the cold, until we ended up in TGI Fridays, which was ok apart from the fruit flies, and I missed the beginning of Lewis on the box 'cos the waitress was so slow. Grumph.

Monday was boring, you don't want to hear about the briefing. Trust me, you don't.

Jump to Thursday and Mrs BC and I were up at 5AM and off to Dumfries to collect two rescue dogs. It may seem a long way to go, but we have been looking for a friend for puppy for a while, and couldn't find anything locally. These two boys, Ringo, a big collie (aged 10) and Star, a small mongrel (aged 4) used to live on a farm but the guy retired and decided he couldn't be bothered to take the dogs with him. They've lived in a barn all their lives and never met cats. The rescue centre said they would mix well with other dogs. Hmm. After 6 hours of driving we hit Dumfries, then spent an hour getting lost. By the time we arrived, the rain was pouring down not really giving us much chance to get to know the dogs outside. Anyway, we decided to take them both, feeling a little sorry for Ringo as he had been run over when he was young, and has a wobbly back end, and neither of them are the most handsome dawgs I've met. They were good as gold in the van, even with the snow and rain pelting on the roof. For two hours we thought we were going to get snowed in to Dumfries-shire but the further north we came, the better the weather. Come Friday morning, Ringo was growling at Finn (our puppy) through the glass door - not a good start! Star was quite friendly but pup was a bit defensive of his territory, understandably. Both dogs thought the cats were quite interesteding. Ginger Geoffrey just ignored them, Joey hasn't met them yet, and Doolie is a big wimp and ran a mile!

This morning we put a muzzle on pup and let him and Star get to know each other. That went quite well, so fingers crossed they will get to like each other. Not so sure about Ringo, who is blind in one eye and appears to be deaf! He barks and growls quite ferociously at pup still, probably being the older dog he thinks this is his home. Doolie gave Ringo 'what for' out in the garden, so now he knows what cats can do, he will keep his distance. The only thing we can do is give them all a chance and see how it goes. Unfortunately, I'm off to work this afternoon, then heading to bloomin' Glasgee again tomorrow, which also means I'll miss the Aberdeen MAG Easter Egg run, again.

Now all I've got to do is choose which pic to post - one from the show or one of the new doggies??? Oh, sooooo many choices! There we go, sorted, thanks to Mary Whyte for the pic, I didn't actually get around to taking a pic of the bike without people in it, and you don't want people in the pic, do you? Nah!