I hope you'll indulge me and let me use this post as catharsis.
The journey has come to an end and, unfortunately for me, in more ways than one.
I'm back home in the UK now ... and note I say I. My beautiful bike is sitting in a scrap yard in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, Bavaria, Germany.
We parted company as far as I remember in a rather dramatic manner when a green car on the A3 Autobahn near Nuremberg decided it wanted my bit of road. Of course car verses bike ... no matter how big, heavy powerful shiny red and loved (Bitter, moi!) that bike is ... will always end up with the car winning.
Seeing my bike, or what's left of it, leads me to believe it put up one hell of a fight... it looked like an Airfix model kit fresh out of the box but detached from the grey plastic bit
As for me, well I was apparently laid out like a discarded May at C & A mannequin after ... and here's the bummer ...some vague masked figure cut off all my clothes. Well not all, they removed my boots and left me my socks and pants... and that's not my trousers for my
I did, I seem to remember, derive a bit of satisfaction from hearing a stoutly built nurse grunting as she scissored through my armour and Kevlar. Fortunately, I never was was one to skimp on protective clothing.
SPOILER ALERT ...I am alright. Having been prodded, X-rayed, Scanned, Ultra-Sounded, given away more bodily fluid samples than i realised I had and interrogated in German ... a strangely eerie experience ... I've been declared fit. I do though have joints of a size that would win prizes at a cattle show and the skin texture and colour of an aging Smurf!
As I said, I don't remember much, some beautiful fräulein (apparently that's an insult now, did you know) holding my hand and whispering lovely things in a language I don't know at all, the sound of a helicopter landing - disappointingly for me it went away without me after the crew decided I could travel by road - and an ambulance ride where began the attack on my outer wear
I came to properly in a 3 bed ward with only 2 of us in it. With me was a man I know know as Kai who fortunately for me spoke perfect English and was an Anglophile. Kai had also been in a motorcycle accident, also not his fault. He was in a very bad way...yet took it upon himself to look after me in my dazed and language depleted state.
When I was fit to be discharged the hospital staff appeared to be unable to take on my concern that the clothes I had come in with had been turned into some form of HI-Vis bunting and that I had nothing to wear. This was discussed backwards and forwards between the staff, Kai and I and ... I'm sure you will think I'm exaggerating for comical effect but honestly the staff suggested that I best take a 35 minute taxi ride in my boots, socks, knickers and a hospital gown to the Scrapyard were my bike was so I could get some clothes from my panniers.
When I reacted to this suggestion in horror and clutched the slightly soiled gown I was wearing the face of one nurse lit up and she went and got me a clean, pressed gown from a drawer - sorted .. I think not.
Eventually Kai, who picked up ... it actually wasn't all that difficult ... that I was reluctant to arrive at a scrapyard full of Hairy A****d scrappies dressed like a reject from The Village People in a floral gown that was open at the rear ... kindly gave me his Nike tracksuit... the kindness of strangers eh.
If I may, I'll leave it there and talk about the return trip proper later ...the thought of what could have happened ..... in a scrapyard in Bavaria is too horrendous to contemplate at the moment...
Good night.
