Came back to work on Monday and still feels like I have never been away. Last year I was regularly doing 60+ hour weeks at work away from my family and friends to try and get a big job completed in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and got no thanks. Their attitude is 'well you are getting paid'. Well bollocks to that this year. The crash before Christmas and a recent bereavement have made me put my life into perspective. You work to live, you don't live to work; so from now on I 'will' do overtime but only when it suits me, not when it suits them and will be focusing more on spending time with my friends and family. Afterall, no one on their death bed ever said 'I wish I had worked more'.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Saturday, 28 February 2009
Ouch!!
The lesson, or should I say the painful lesson to be learnt here is that if you go riding in the winter then take it easy. The roads are not as forgiving due to the cold and diesel fuel dumped on there by lorries with incorrect fitting fuel caps. The other lesson is to wear the correct protective clothing 'every' time you go out, wether that be just a quick jaunt to the shops or a whole tour. I got away what I consider lightly with a broken leg and some ligament damage, but thanks to having all the right protective gear on (which was destroyed but saved me) thats all I got.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Out With The Old
What the hell? All I want is for this guy to talk to me like and adult. The bloody salesman I am talking to is giving me all the patter. I know all the pro’s and the very few con’s of the bike I am about to spend a small fortune buying. Just take my money and stop patronising me you tit. As you may be able to guess I don’t have much time for sales people! If it wasn’t for the internet then I would only have myself to blame but obviously I have done my research; I would be a fool to hand over any cash at all if I hadn’t.
Anyhow, last Friday evening I picked up my new bike; a K5 GSX-R 750, and what a bike it is. After four years of faithful service from my ZX6 I finally had the wherewithal and the time was right to trade ‘her’ in and upgrade. To be totally honest, the last twelve months have seen very little in the way of road use for the old bike and lack of use had unfortunately lead to a niggling fault that four different dealers and over 500 quid failed to fix! Even when I was due to pick it up from the garage to take it to the dealer it failed to start. Luckily they got it started at the eleventh hour and it got me to the dealers ok. So the time was right and the ideal bike was available. Sometimes you have to treat yourself.
After picking it up Friday the only chance I got to ride it over the weekend was Saturday morning when I got to take it to the garage for its MOT, something that should have been done in the shop but the salesman had forgotten to get done. Anyhoo, it passed with no trouble. From there the next chance I got to use it was on the ride from Liverpool to Glasgow, via my mums house 180 degrees in the opposite direction, for a stop over to collect the work phone that try as I might I could not find an excuse to leave at home!
I could have put money on it raining. I should have put money on it raining. Five forty on a Monday morning my eyelids were straining to keep apart and the only thing I could do to stop from rolling over and going back to sleep was to think of the three or four hours ahead of me in the saddle riding back to Glasgow on my new bike. So after getting it out of the girlfriends back garden and spending over twenty minutes donning all the waterproof gear I have I was away.
I always get a bit excited at the start of any ride, even a mundane motorway jaunt up a cold strip of tarmac. You get a lot of head space, time to yourself to just think about shit when you are on a bike. I am not really one for wearing headphones and listening to music on the go so I obviously have stacks of time to ponder stuff and the journey up the M6/M74 gave me plenty of time for that. I started to think about the trips I will take on the new bike and if they could ever match up to the great times I had on the old bike. Times have changed since the last big trip I did. That one was round Europe with my mate, we will still do that and others again but I am in a relationship now and so chances are that the girlfriend and I will be doing a trip together some time in the New Year. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it will be different. With the girlfriend on the back will my riding pleasure be less due to the bike being more heavily loaded? A twist of the throttle and the noise of the induction roar reminds me that this is a much bigger bike than the last and so shouldn’t be a problem (as well as spreading a cheeky smile across my face). It had 4445 miles on the clock when I picked it up and I wondered how many more miles will be on it whenever at a future date I decide to trade it in and where those miles will have taken me.
Anyhow, last Friday evening I picked up my new bike; a K5 GSX-R 750, and what a bike it is. After four years of faithful service from my ZX6 I finally had the wherewithal and the time was right to trade ‘her’ in and upgrade. To be totally honest, the last twelve months have seen very little in the way of road use for the old bike and lack of use had unfortunately lead to a niggling fault that four different dealers and over 500 quid failed to fix! Even when I was due to pick it up from the garage to take it to the dealer it failed to start. Luckily they got it started at the eleventh hour and it got me to the dealers ok. So the time was right and the ideal bike was available. Sometimes you have to treat yourself.
After picking it up Friday the only chance I got to ride it over the weekend was Saturday morning when I got to take it to the garage for its MOT, something that should have been done in the shop but the salesman had forgotten to get done. Anyhoo, it passed with no trouble. From there the next chance I got to use it was on the ride from Liverpool to Glasgow, via my mums house 180 degrees in the opposite direction, for a stop over to collect the work phone that try as I might I could not find an excuse to leave at home!
I could have put money on it raining. I should have put money on it raining. Five forty on a Monday morning my eyelids were straining to keep apart and the only thing I could do to stop from rolling over and going back to sleep was to think of the three or four hours ahead of me in the saddle riding back to Glasgow on my new bike. So after getting it out of the girlfriends back garden and spending over twenty minutes donning all the waterproof gear I have I was away.
I always get a bit excited at the start of any ride, even a mundane motorway jaunt up a cold strip of tarmac. You get a lot of head space, time to yourself to just think about shit when you are on a bike. I am not really one for wearing headphones and listening to music on the go so I obviously have stacks of time to ponder stuff and the journey up the M6/M74 gave me plenty of time for that. I started to think about the trips I will take on the new bike and if they could ever match up to the great times I had on the old bike. Times have changed since the last big trip I did. That one was round Europe with my mate, we will still do that and others again but I am in a relationship now and so chances are that the girlfriend and I will be doing a trip together some time in the New Year. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it will be different. With the girlfriend on the back will my riding pleasure be less due to the bike being more heavily loaded? A twist of the throttle and the noise of the induction roar reminds me that this is a much bigger bike than the last and so shouldn’t be a problem (as well as spreading a cheeky smile across my face). It had 4445 miles on the clock when I picked it up and I wondered how many more miles will be on it whenever at a future date I decide to trade it in and where those miles will have taken me.
Monday, 20 October 2008
Banks.........Bastards!
I rang my bank last week just to check on the meagre balance in my ISA account and while on the phone made a cursory enquiry as to the interest rate I was being paid. 3.1 percent said the girl on the end of the phone quite sheepishly; but no further advice on any other savings available to me. Anyway, a quick check on the internet showed that the same bank was offering the exact same ISA with at least 5 percent interest! Needless to say I called back to see the chances of swapping to the higher payer (as well as having the threat of moving my cash elsewhere up my sleeve!). ‘No problem Mr Rooney, give me a moment and I’ll swap that over for you now’. Thirty seconds later I was earning two percent higher interest. This may not seem like much but this is my money and even at five percent it is still a lot less coming my way than the interest the bank will be charging someone else for lending my money to them! Bastards.
Sunday, 11 May 2008
Been away a while
Well I have been away from the ether for a while but I am back. I will be posting some new, er, musings over the following weeks and months so please feel free to check the blog from time to time. Speak soon...............
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