Back home in London

So back in London now.  Well actually arrived last Monday after a really tough ride in the Wind, not much rain through.   

There was a distinct quality difference between the ferry on the way over and the way back.   I took Stena Line over and Irish Ferries back.   On both the staff were really nice, but the Irish ferry just a bit run down and not as modern.    I had upgraded to Premium on both.   I did have a nice chat with the Captain of the Irish ferry who was also into motorbikes though.  On Irish Ferries, it appears that you have to strap your own bike down to the deck.   I found this out when one of the deck crew muttered something with an Eastern European accent and passed me a cushion and a ratchet strap and pointed to a securing point on the deck, no words had been exchanged.  The cushion is to place over the seat to help prevent damage to the seat (they can snap if you are not careful when you ratchet down.   I guess they wanted me to strap it down because there is always a chance of damaging the bike if not done properly, so I assume that they assume that I knew what I was doing.  Poor person that has never done this before.   Anyway, I go to strap it down and the ratchet mechanism is all seized up from continuous exposure to the saltwater.   I call over to a group of deckhands standing about 10m away, but they just look at me and point to the deck, they don’t understand me, they don’t understand that the ratchet strap is broken.  My Eastern Europen is nonexistent, so I try to make it as simple as possible for them.   I hold the ratchet up, point at it and shout “It’s SH*T”.   It gets their attention and one of them walks over in a very disinterested way.   He takes the strap from me and goes to ratchet the bike down.   The ratchet is stuck.  He looks at me and says “Very Sh*T” and walks off to get another one.

The drive from Pembroke to London is particularly dull if staying on the Motorways, which I did to try to get back fast.   Even so, it was a 6-hour ride, stopping only for fuel and a quick snack.   I arrived in Pembroke at 13:00, just in time for the lunch hour rush, then as I traveled towards London I started picking up all the traffic of people leaving early for the weekend, so the motorway was windy and busy.    You need a lot of concentration on UK motorways when they are busy.  People just drift into daydreaming and stop paying attention, so you have to stay alert and make assessments on every car ahead and behind you.   I fitted bright lights and air-horns to improve my presence on the roads.   I only once had to use the air-horns, that makes me sound like a lorry, as a Mercedes tried to move into my lane, they quickly backed off. 

I arrived home at 19:00.  Had a quick snack and was asleep by 20:30.   It had been a very very tiring day.

Despite the rain and wind it had been a great trip with some great ride outs.