Sunday, 13th June 2021

Having paid for Day 5 ‘Test to Release’ from Covid-19 self-isolation, I was delighted when on Day 7 the result came through as negative so I was a free man.  My priority?  With glorious summer weather prevailing, to enjoy a ride on either of my two motorcycles that are the tangible objects that I miss the most, living in Sri Lanka.

Stuart kindly took me to my home very shortly after the email arrived, and within a few further minutes my Triumph Thruxton R was ready and I was donning my riding kit.  Prior to moving to Sri Lanka I had cleaned my riding boots and placed them in their original box, in the bottom of a steel cupboard in the garage – but on picking the box up it felt far too heavy just to contain boots.

“What could I have packed in there too?” was my thought during the few seconds it took to place the box down and open the lid.

The answer was “nothing”.

The extra weight was a good kilo and a half of seeds and mice droppings.  Goodness knows how many trips the mice had made.  My guess is that this dates back to late 2019 or early 2020 because on returning home in January 2020 during a business trip I had found that mice had been living in the engine bay of my car and turned its polished cleanliness in to an unholy mess.

Fortunately the boots were undamaged bar the mice chewing through the special laces, and the kind manufacturer (a shout out for Alpinestars) kindly offered to post a new set free of charge.

Unfortunately the lining in Misa’s all weather riding jacket and likewise in my leather jacket faired rather worse; both are now with a specialist company in Coventry for the linings to be replaced.

The door to the cupboard now has a heavy brick in front of it.

Steve