I slept, not well but sufficient, recharged unlike my phone and navigation device. My electronic charges have fallen out and now refuse to talk to the two battery packs, they were working intermittently when I left them to their own devices overnight but I awoke to disappointment. They appear to now only favour the 12v bike battery via a dodgy Chinese adaptor. This strategy is a little fraught as the bike needs the battery to start and by appeasing Apple I may rob myself of mobility.

Moving on, I packed my paltry possessions while the poultry looked on. Dispatching yesterday’s blog I found a familiar name on the map and set the sights on a campsite near Dijon, then departed. I didn’t get far, spluttering to a halt in the village and cursing my caution and memory, I’d turned the fuel taps off the night before having seen that the top of the gearbox appeared wet, I’ve had a bad time recently with carburettor float valves leaking.

The weather threatened to rain then backed down, perhaps intimidated by my look of grim determination. The bike was much happier with my “No Tolls” route preference although the 7 hour predicted duration was daunting, perhaps rightly so. I too was enjoying the empty roads and towns, hoping to find a cafe I found only shuttered stores, perhaps this is an August in France thing?

Escaping Saint Quentin I headed south through Sézanne and on through the Champaign Region to Troyes, stopping only for fuel and occasional cigarettes. The Guzzi is blessed with a large capacity fuel tank, I estimate about 200 miles from full to reserve, however the back roads are not blessed with many gas stations so I’d stop and search when she hits about 180 miles. My first stop was fully automated (de-humanised) which gave me angst, unjustified in this case, my card worked so well that a young french motorist asked me to use it to put €30’s worth into his car. Not a knife point, and he did pay me.

On through golden fields of stubble we crossed and re-crossed the Seine river right up to its source where my fuel also began to run dry. I checked the map and threw the dice, a stop on the route or a 10 mile diversion, time was short, I took my chances, She spluttered out at 201 miles and I switched to reserve about 10 hilly miles from the stop, I did extreme “lift and coast” freewheeling down the hills and was very glad to see the, again automated, stop.

Freed from range anxiety I could worry about the bike, in my mind she rattles a lot, something that I put down to a worn out cam chain tensioner that I’d intended to replace, should be OK. In other news oil is weeping from the right hand cylinder head gasket, oil leaks always look worse than they are, I tell myself.

I made it to the campsite and was allocated a premium spot next to the shower block with a copious supply of mosquitoes, still glad to be here. Had a beer by the Saône river, an inland waterway that flows to Lyon where a marriage to the Rhône frees it from its name. My french is good enough that when ordering a large beer to have sitting on the deck chairs outside I end up in a conversation about where I have parked my boat and how long it is. I dallied and the kitchen was “ferme” to the likes of me so off to bed with no food.

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.