David J. Rose

By djrose007

Disastrous Day

Took the bike out to travel to Cleeve Hill, on the other side of Cheltenham, for a commemoration of the first disaster. A Halifax Bomber, on it's way back to base in Yorkshire, crashed into Cleeve Hill on this day in 1944.
There is a small monument to the event and a large number of people turned out to commemorate it. A service, and wreath laying by the RAFA, RCAF (most of the crew were Royal Canadian Air Force), the current Commanding Officer of 78 Squadron, to which the Halifax belonged to 80 years ago.
So that was the first disaster.
When I got to Cleeve Hill Golf Club, where everyone was meeting and then walking up the hill to the monument, I was manoeuvring my bike in a very stony, gravelly car park. My foot slipped and my bike went over. I tried to stop it with my left foot, and pulled a muscle in my left buttock! Very painful, and it meant my left leg was pretty useless and I couldn't lift the bike back up. Two people came to my aid and we got the bike up, I put the stand down, and it stood up. I, and every biker in the world, hate gravel!
So a painful walk up the hill, and back down again an hour later.
I managed to manoeuvre backwards, from the parking place, and set off for home.
Next - Got home and, going backwards to get the bike into the garage, my left leg just gave way and over I went again, right into my cars front wing. Tried to lift it but the pain was too much and I struggled making the damage much worse - see extra. I just gritted my teeth and pushed up holding underneath the seat and, using my right heel, managed to get the stand down again. Marlane and Johanna came out later and stood by in case I needed assistance but I was ok getting it into the garage this time. The damage, that you can see in the photo, was mostly caused by the bikes clutch handle, the jagged lines are where I was attempting to lift the bike. I'll have to get some quotes for this to be repaired, may need a new wing section.
And to cap the day off - I made some cinnamon swirls (a 'jus-rol' tube kit), set the timer on my phone for 11 minutes - but I actually set it for 11 hours!!! Yes, they got burned but I caught them while they were brown but still edible.
One near disaster, that was averted by goodness knows what, what that I had put my phone in my shirt breast pocket. Time for the girls to come out of the swimming pool and I kneeled down to get a couple of buoyancy jacket floating near the edge of the pool.
You've guessed it, my phone slid out, plopped into the pool and went down 4 feet deep! Hetty duck dived and got it back for me, and it worked like nothing had happened, and still is working (nearly 20:30) in the evening. I can only think that it is because I have a magnetic connector which attaches, magnetically of course, to the magnetic charging cable. This means that the power socket is sealed, very lucky.
Hope I don't have many other days like today, very unlucky and it's not even Friday the 13th!
 

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