Lost Airfields

Page 14

A little perspective

“Oooh, I was expecting someone else!”she said.

I fancied a ride this evening. It’s The same thought clearly occurred to all of us at the same time. spring. It’s light. It’s Wednesday. It’s A few more minutes passed while we been a bitch of a day in the office. That’s good enough for me. I had to drop our entry fee for the Village Quiz in at a neighbour ’s house so thought I’d call by on the Ural. As I set off, there was still enough light not to worry the eccentric Russian Ural electrics and the lanes beckoned. The edges of the sky were just starting to crinkle and dim, but that was it.

struggled – hard – to recover from the laughter. Negotiations were made as the complexities of change from the various notes was worked out. Then, goodnights exchanged, Reece invited me over to see his new machine. This was an old barn-find Divvy 600 he’d just finished restoring. And what a job he’d made of it. Remember those wonderful black and gold JPS Lotus F1 cars from the 1970s? Same colour. Same coachlines. Gorgeous.

Living in Bampton has a tendency to resemble The Archers from time to time. We were chatting away when we both This was one of them. turned to listen to the lampost-shooting thump of a big single. The whumpI arrived on our neighbour ’s doorstep whump-whump got closer and a just as another neighbour and fellow Yamaha SRX600 pulled up. rider, Reece, got there too. Both of us clutched our Quiz cash in our hands. I “Evening Mike. How’s things?” knocked. We exchanged bike chat as we waited for her to answer the door. So now there’s me, the Ural, Reece and After a few minutes, she flung the door open, clearly somewhat flustered. There she stood, in her nightgown with a towel around her head, obviously straight out of the bath. And to find two men at her door, holding out a handful of notes each.

his Divvy and Mike and the SRX. Bikes and helmets littering the lane, chatting away where the Downton Abbey production team had been ragging Lady Mary Crawley’s wedding coach just a couple of weeks earlier. If only the viewers could see it now.

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