Monday 25 August 2008

Er, golly gosh, goodness me


























Just checked the Paypal thingie...not looked for a few days....heaps of donations have appeared!! Will tot it all up in a bit.... WOW, thanks guys, thats another £60 through the DONATE button taking us up to £1361.39!!!

Shed saga to come too.....

Oops, forgot, left the bath running, better go....

Ok, where to start. Decided to head over to Aviemore on Saturday to see - or rather hear the Harleys who were there for their annual rally, Thunder in the Glens. Up early, 7am would you believe, things to do ya know, sheep to check, dogs to walk and so on. Mrs BC and I had a lovely drive out to Huntly, up to Dufftown, across to Grantown on Spey and finally down to Aviemore. Nice at this time of year with the harvest in full flow and bright sunshine. Had arranged to meet Shorty for lunch, finally found him and Westie and Mrs Westie - they'd been slightly held up by heavy traffic on the A9 and only just made it for the start of the Harley ride out. At 12 o'clock, a nice policeman stopped the traffic on the main street through the village, the piper began to play and they all set off north to Grantown. The noise is horrendous (in a good way) and the different sites are amazing with all kinds of customised bikes and trikes taking the first corner with aplomb, lights flashing and horns and sirens blaring. One thing that we both noticed was that there seemed to be a large proportion of lady riders there, and dogs, mostly in sidecars. The dogs, I mean. I only saw three officers of the law all day, two of whom were pedalling up and down on push bikes - do they really think the Harley boys and girls go that slow?? Well the one we followed on the way over did. After lunch we had a wander round the stalls, loads of skull and crossbones tee shirts, bandannas and so on for sale, along with tents full of sew-on patches for the rufty tufty biker. Saw an MZ in the parking area, wonder who that belonged to - come on, own up, who was it?

Sunday. Caught up with some strimming in the morning, then made a stupid decision after lunch to do another section of the shed floor. From that moment on, everything went wrong. By the time I'd been to my own private beach (half way up the drive) to collect a van full of sandy ballast, hooked the mixer up, found the shovel, remembered what mix I was using, shifted the mixer closer to where I would be pouring it....and got the first load underway, it was half past three. My cunning plan to have the mixer on the edge of the bit that needed filling was to do away with having to use the wheel barrow, which Mrs BC had full of potatoes. After pouring two very wet loads I realised that plan wasn't going to work so well. It would mean pouring all the loads in the same spot, then shovelling them to where they had to go. No go. Empty the barrow, pump the tyre up, find a plank of wood to span the void and get going again. I dunno what went wrong. Couldn't get the consistency right, too dry and crumbly or too sloppy and ploppy. By supper time I hadn't even done half of it, and the most stupid thing of all was that I had done bits round the edges and not in the middle, so it was back out after my roast chicken and home grown veg to do some more....light was failing by then, as was I....too tired...in huge amounts of pain....no point carrying on....whinge whinge......wasn't going to get it finished, so had to leave it. Covered it up just as the rain came on. Monday morning....7am...was that rain I could hear? Nah....just the leaves rustling against the window....yawn....considered getting up but to be honest, couldn't move even if I wanted to. Gave it half an hour, still no rain, drat. Had to get up and get out there to finish it off before work. My timing is impeccable, just finished and placed the first sheet of tin over it when the rain came down. Well it looks awful and will probably crack and split and so on but I can always patch it up.

Did a bit of investigative work on Cubbie yesterday. Finally picked the new battery up from Dingbro in Aberdeen. What a place, phones ringing non-stop, wouldn't want to work there. It looks, er, huge, I hope it fits! The nice man there insisted on filling it with acid for me too, so I guess theres no taking it back if it doesn't fit, I expect thats why he did it. Also I'll need to change the connectors on the bike from spades to things that can be bolted on. Oh good, another session with a sharp knife and ever shortening bits of wire. Before doing that however, I decided it would be a good plan to try and find out why the main fuse blew. And if the charging system was working. But the second part of the plan was too complicated, didn't understand a word the manual said about it, so thought I'd fire Cubbie up, just to see if the old battery held a charge. Well it had been sitting in the steading for about a week after I'd last charged it, and sticking the multimeter on it recorded 6.something volts. Odd. John with the Morgan had reported it dropped down to 4 after he charged it. Hooked it up, stuck the meter on it again and peeped the horn. Why does the voltage rise when I do that? Anyway, my cobbled together fuse started to smoke when I fired the bike up, so thought I'd better not do that again. Time to investigate why. Took the battery box off and had a look at the bundle of wires that lurk behind it. Already had to patch one up last time the fuse kept blowing. Cleaned all the oil off, then spotted a bare bit of wire. Cleaned it up good and proper and wrapped it in tape. Small problem....no insulating tape to hand.....ah well, just use Duct tape, will that work? Hmm, don't know, wait and see. (Phew, just heard from my tame electericaral person that he uses Duct tape cos it sticks better then insulating tape). Then spotted another wire in need of attention. And another. Crikey, time for a new loom me thinks! Hopefully one of these was the culprit and when I get a proper fuse I'll be able to try it out. No idea what to do about the battery, it seemed to hold 6volts after that start, but on returning home from the National the other week, one start was enough to drain it completely.

Weather forecast is good for the weekend....supposed to be heading south to conquer some counties.....better get a fuse today and get those terminals swapped....oh dear....got a heap of envelopes to stuff this morning....for the road safety run entry forms ya know....you want one?

Oh yeah, did I mention I managed to walk into the cement mixer and nearly poke my eye out?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

...Hope you enjoyed your weekend, glad to see you...

how was the big bob blues band?

BigBobW

Gorgeous Biker Chick said...

Haha, didn't see or hear your band Bob, couldn't stay that long...had to go to work on the way home :-(

Anonymous said...

Not another black eye I hope after the argument with the cement mixer?

MZ Mark

PS Had a certain Welsh chap and his son here the other weekend.

Anonymous said...

Question: The Pic with the chrome helmet, long hair and Kiss patch...male or female?

BigBobW

Gorgeous Biker Chick said...

Er...male...I think....

Mark...no black eye this time, just slightly sore! My ears were burning too, the other weekend...

Anonymous said...

I just got the latest CBG, and GBC I must say your pictures are great. I am truly jealous of the great riding you can have over there.

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