Saturday 27th Feb
[Danny]
After waking up on Saturday morning to the sound of torrential rain on the morning I was to meet Graham Hoskins at the Ace Cafe bike show at the Alexander palace to head off on a 7000 mile journey around the Med. We are taking in 14 countries in 15 days and I was not in any way enthusiastic about hacking down the North Circular Rd. But I did. And got soaked. My phone got waterlogged and stopped working. I was meant to be doing a Radio interview with DJ Elaine for Colourful radio, which I missed. My Mrs and kids were there as were Graham’s. We were introduced on stage by Mark Wilsmore from Ace Cafe. Then it was time for the big send off. After I sat on the most perfect bike ever for me, The Black Jaguar low rider. We set off.... to Victoria to get our passports which were at the Visa Agent because the Algerian Consul didn’t sign the visa in time for the trip. So the first drama had reared it’s ugly head and now we had to bypass Algeria and get a ferry to Tunisia. We were now on our way to the Channel tunnel. We arrived in Calais about 6 o’clock and Got our heads down. Waking up was like the end of a nightmare. I got all my time back to front and what was meant to be a rendezvous at even at the bike turned into heart failure. I looked out of the window and one of the bikes was gone! It was also crapping it down. Thank the lord Graham had moved his bike out of the rain and under the canopy whilst I was dribbling on my pillow dreaming of a Caribbean holiday. I went to rescue my bike and to my horror found my bank card lying in a big puddle in the car park. It was the shape of the things to come that day.