November 2025

 

November 2025

The weather has changed along with the clocks. Halloween has just been celebrated and Gita and I joined in at Darlingtons an Aylesbury for an early meal at the café. A very pleasant start to the evening. I needed an early night as there was an early start in the morning for the Wey Valley Observed Sunday. 

It was a wet start and I took the car. I would have to wash a bike if I went out on it. The Buell was back home and I would have like a ride on it but not today although it would be better later, later was not now. Today there were detours for junction ten on the M25 so I went through Walton to get to Cobham arriving at the village hall at around 8:30. This meeting was different. John was away and Bob was taking over and his first time in his new career. The shop was already laid out and ready to go. Nothing much for me to do. There were only a handful of people but it was soon buzzing after an hour and were selling lots of stickers and not much else. The sun was out and roads were drying. A good time to do my morning photo round of the car park. Soon after the announcements we started to pack stuff away. Bob found a discrepancy with the stock list not discovered before creating more work with everyone checking every thing again and again. I needed to leave to go to Norfolk. 

This was the start of the problems for the day. I returned home and was caught out by the roadworks and diversions and made my way home by a much longer route. Gita needed the car while I was away at Martham with my brothers for the week. I changed cars and loaded up the El Cid. It is over three-hour drive time and should arrive before it gets dark. My departure time was 2:15. Later than I wanted to be. I had just got on to the M25 and straight into a jam. Crawling for an hour and stationary for half of that time I cleared the obstruction and was making good progress again. Stopping for fuel just on the A14 after two and a half hours and I had still one and a half to go. I was starting to get dark as I left the services and plagued with inappropriate lights on cars and lorries that slowed my progress because I just could not see, much to the annoyance of the drivers causing the problem. Eventually arriving at Martham boatyard about half six and feeling quite stressed at how the day had gone. Give me beer!

The next day was more serene with a gentle walk, a cruise in the boat and a grand meal at the Nelson Head in Horsey. This was the pattern for the week with a bit of sailing thrown in. 

Testing out the new type of electric outboard and light weight lithium battery was a new experience gaining confidence in each expedition. It turned out to be very successful removing any battery life anxiety. I had become so destressed I didn’t manage to get to the Norfolk Motorcycle Museum this year.

The return journey presented its’ own challenges. Early Saturday morning to miss the traffic it was a breeze negotiating roadworks without holdups. Stopping on the A14 just before the M11 for a break and fuel it was time to say goodbye to my brothers before they headed off for Bristol by the northerly route. Progress was good until on the M11 there was no charge. I thought it was the fan belt broken, or the flywheel come adrift. None of which could be a problem and fixed when I got home. When on the M25 progress was slowed by the sheer volume of traffic and only then I became aware of something more serious. There was a rattle at low revs that went as the revs increased. That worried me. Even more so that there was nowhere to stop. Smart motorways had become death traps. The engine was still running. Keep going until you have to stop. It might just be in a better place. I continued at a steady pace and finally just a mile from home I had to stop at traffic lights then smoke crept out from under the bonnet. It did not smell like a fire. The lights changed. We were still running. It was an agonising few minutes before I swung into my drive at home and was able to stop.

Home and time to see what was wrong. The fan belt was still there and so was the centre boss of the flywheel but it was not connected. The flywheel had broken free from the centre boss. The engine was no longer fan cooled and had over heated using a bit of oil and the smoke was oil on the outside of the oil cooler. I borrowed the fan from the van engine in the garage to keep the El Cid operational and did that in a few hours. It seems that there was no damage done through overheating but as a precaution I will need to change the oil.

 I was out on the Buell as soon as the weather permitted with a forty mile round trip via Amersham. A pleasant drive not highlighting any problems. The weather turned colder and I suffered from it I used the El Cid to go to the Thames Tortoises club night in Ashford discovering that the windscreen wipers would not work and the fan belt cover had worked loose both of which I fixed the next day. The wipers soon worked again with a touch of WD40 backed up with spray grease to keep the rain out. It took a bit longer to secure the cover over the alternator pulley wheel as the cover edges needed reworking to get the right shape then it fitted securely. That evening it was LE club night. It was unusually cold in the pub but it was an evening of warm reunion with a member managing to get to us after a delay of five years. There was a lot of catching up. Then it snowed. I have no memory of it ever having snowed this early in November fortunately it didn’t settle and was gone in an hour. This prompted me to get on with garden preparations for winter like turning the irrigation system off covering the garden chairs to protect them from the ravishes of winter, pruning roses and a quick repair job on a lose panel with one hand and electric screwdriver in the other not only screwed it down but also my finger.  Had to unscrew the screw to release my finger. Stupid really as I was holding and supporting the parts and my finger was where the screw ended up. I’ll stay out of the garden for a bit. It’s too dangerous for me.