Italy: Day 1 Doing it

I told myself that I’d leave the house at 10am, at 10am I was still packing clothes. Not bad considering the whirlwind of activity that preceded.

The bike needed an MOT (annual safety inspection), not for the UK, where vehicles over 40 years old are pardoned this scrutiny, but to appease any cash strapped authority on the way that could punish this unticked box. The day before I’d pulled the swinging arm off to replace some clutch push-rod seals that might stem the trickle feed of gearbox oil to the back tyre. The front tyre, not worn out, but tired was replaced and I set the tappets and fiddled with the carburettors and spark plugs. Hopefully none of these will feature again in my story, like Chekhov’s gun.

11:15 I actually left and headed north, out to the M25 at Potters Bar then round over the Dartford crossing and down the M20. There a services that didn’t serve and roadworks prevented me from rejoining the motorway so A20 it was from there to the Tunnel terminal.

Not as late as I should have been, I stocked up on other legislation merch, a warning triangle, headlight beam deflectors, a ‘UK’ motorcycle sticker (thank you Brexit) and a pack of random light bulbs. They called my gate and I joined 3 other 2 wheel warriors, whose names, in a break with tradition, I did not harvest.

We were last to embark and left the bikes, precariously wobbling on their side stands, while we sat on the floor and chatted. Two were off to the Nordstrom on rocket ships and one was completing a tour of Europe on a 500cc Honda Harley wannabe. So short the passage and so long our chat we were last off and way behind the tube of cars that had already spent itself on foreign soil.

Freed of any time constraint and free from any premeditation I looked at the map and decided that Arras was my destination. Inadvertently we (the bike and I) took the toll road and, worried that the pace was a little hot for the old girl, I stopped to fit the headlight deflector, my schoolboy physics balked at the placement but I followed the instructions, we’ll see, or not.

Arras is cute and offered promise of pavement cafes, but keen to camp and missing an hour due to timezones I searched for campsites and hit gold with ‘Camping La Paille Haute’, they had me at ‘bar’. I took the long way, still adjusting to navigating from the ‘wrong’ side of the road. I was well received and allotted a €20 corner for my erection. It’s been a while, I got the tent up before remembering and rejecting the ground sheet. A hen and chicks wandered over to observe. Outsider syndrome briefly visited when I realised that I was squatting a corner between two larger pitches however a trip to the bar soon diluted my dystopia.

I entertained the french national dish in the restaurant, refreshingly no one asked how I’d like my steak done and I also escaped the insincere ‘is everything OK’ enquiry 2 seconds after eating commenced.