Читать книгу No One Said It Would Be Easy - Des Molloy - Страница 26

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no one said it would be easy

when you are not sure if the quantum of work left to do, will fit in the time available. I was having to miss out on a few social outings now that the adventure was looming large, including a festival headlined by 10cc and The Rolling Stones. Steph attended and blamed the sun and tiredness for her not making it through to the end in an upright position.

Pommie Jim made wooden pannier boxes for us, just as he had for my ‘Ernie the ES2’ ride a couple of years earlier. The pending departure and the final completion of the bikes were converging and it was looking like it was going to be a close-run race. Sadly, the nice B33 BSA was taken to the nearest tube station and left outside in the car park after removing the magneto as a spare for the trip.

After many years, the flat at 46 was going to be abandoned with no replacement tenants lined up by any of the residents. This meant quite a big clear up and in the absence of any knowledge of how to get stuff to the dump … (we didn't actually know where there was a dump!) … we came up with a cunning plan. Some of the girls from the past including Steph had co-owned a VW Beetle which now seemed surplus. Steph could have the London taxi. The other owners were gone but the VW hadn’t, so we filled it with the detritus of many years of itinerant young lives. We then drove to a posh neighbouring suburb, looked for a smart street and parked it outside the flashest, pleased-and-proud house we could find. We then locked it and walked away. This gave us immature pleasure for many weeks, wondering how long it would take for the home-owners to mobilise the council to remove the eyesore that was our legacy.

Our leave-taking was programmed for Sunday afternoon following the final farewell party for the flat. This would have been ok if we were ready. We weren’t and spent half the party night working on the bikes, still trying to sort out primary chains of the correct lengths and getting luggage sorted. Half-heartedly we partied too, trying to be part of something that truly was the ‘end of an era’. These last few days had been full to the point of over-flowing and I was neglecting Steph a bit, but I also knew that the ship wouldn’t wait, whereas I was confident our relationship was not something that would wither and die because of such a trifle.

A myriad of last-minute things were attended to on the Sunday morning when we finally arose. All around us, there was activity as the flat was abandoned, farewells flying everywhere. There would be a skeleton crew only there that night. Around lunchtime, we had our maiden voyages, fully laden. They were a nightmare, the bikes