On my way...

Well Friday 10th June, Senior race day, 4 o'clock in the morning.  I'm at the sea terminal absolutely knackered as I was out with Gary Thomas and his mate at Bushy's the night before until midnight, Ali was working too with her new probationer and so it was a good night.  I slept on the sofa as it seemed pointless going to bed and was up at 3 getting ready.
The crossing was pretty smooth although I slept through most of it and then Nick and I parted at Heysham.  He was heading to Hull and I was off to Portsmouth.  It was only 9 o'clock and I didn't have to be there until 7.15 that night so I had loads of time, or so I thought.

I first headed to Darwen, near Blackburn, as I wanted to buy some bike gear for my travels.  Then I nipped over to Manchester to see my mum; " Hello Mum".  After that I went to Cheadle to the AA offices as I had found out the day before that they had charged me twice for European Breakdown insurance.  I sorted that problem out pretty easily but whilst I was there the heavens opened and it didn't stop raining until I got to Birmingham and then it was on and off all the way.  So much for escaping the weather !!
So as I had said before I had loads of time to get to Portsmouth but that was until the cops closed the A34 near Newbury for a 4 car pile up.  Well at least it made a change from bike crashes I suppose.  Then they go and close the diversion road because of another bump, but thankfully due to lots of filtering I made the ferry port with 10 minutes to spare.  No worries !!  On the boat, had some food and bed by 9:15.