You’ll notice today that there is something missing from my bike. My spare tyres. Despite their protestations that I had to take them out the country, and the fact I paid a fine, the wankers just drove off with them in their clown car and wouldn’t give them back to me! BASTARDS

Anyway, after my 30p per minute, 2 and a half hour sleep I awoke with a massive .. careful… stretch. That always means a sleep coma when I’ve not moved a muscle. Despite my mind being awake though my bum was still asleep. It gave a significant snore when I lent over to get some bread at breakfast.

Total silence.

Bit awkward.

Saddled up, pressed start and away we go. My temper this morning is shorter than an Asian cock after an ice bath and I’ve got to make sure to keep it in check. It’s always like this when I’m tired so I have to make a deliberate effort to be methodical and not just start chucking stuff about.

This part of the trip is always going to be about just turning the handle. That said, if it were pissing down and miserable this would be a chore. But you really can’t be anything but happy when you’re scooting through lovely scenery in the 20 degree sunshine I’ve got 360 miles to do today and the first 200 are A roads. Or A++ roads in Lithuania’s case. I drop into Kaunas City for some lunch. A lovely old town with cafes away from the traffic and noise.

I get an hour back in Poland, get on the toll road and let my tired old brain have an hour or two off before holing up in Łomża for the night. Don’t do it. I did it so you don’t have to. Really. Don’t

Fuck only knows what happened with the pictures today. I threw 90% of them away.

Łomża was asleep when I got up. It looked exactly the same as when it was supposedly awake.

I’m on the motorway in a few minutes. I’ve got earplugs in which I don’t usually do and I can just hear the hum of The Bitch beneath me. She’s not a happy girl at the moment. Low speed riding is getting worse, I think (hope!) it’s because she’s having trouble breathing. Her air filter will be blocked with 10000 miles of shit but cleaning it involves a lot of disrobing and disconnecting, all of which involves risks I’m not taking. On the motorway where she can open her stride and run she’s fine.With the relative quiet and a fat line on the satnav saying the next turn isn’t for 250 miles I can start to reflect, replay and reassess bits of this trip.

When I was eating my breakfast this morning some very good friends of mine said they had been worried in case I was anywhere near the munitions facility that was delivered a 100 UAV shit storm on Wednesday morning. Well..it just so happens..

When I wrote my notes for Wednesday my entire cranial capacity was consumed with white hot rage about my experience at the Russian border, and I’d completely forgotten about that morning.

That morning I had been awoken by the sounds of percussion. Big percussion. I laid in my bed listening to what sounded like huge, but distant explosions. They were going on and on. It sounded like there was some firing going on too. I did cross my mind it could be an attack but I just dismissed it because I was quite a way from Ukraine. That and the fact the town I was in was obviously an army town with people in fatigues everywhere. I thought maybe they were just doing live firing exercises, even though the depth of the percussion sounds was very deep. I went down, sat in the dark and looked for news but couldn’t find anything. BBC is blocked and even VPNs don’t help.

But when I got out on the road there were loads of police cars going past at full speed with their lights on. I went into a fuel station and there were 3 police cars quickly fuelling up and fucking off. Then I saw police cars in the woods off the side, and a couple at some junctions.

So, in another strange twist of fate, I randomly chose to stay the night up the road from where Zelenskyy had aimed his ire. And it must have been the Toropets attack I’d heard. This run of being in a particular place when stuff is happening is really quite eerie. It might have some bearing on why I was fucked about to such a massive degree that evening too.

And then that made me think about a couple of days before when I’d watched what I assumed was a Russian UAV fly across some fields and head off east. Earlier that day, just before I’d seen a new field of graves, I saw a big plume forming to my right, then just after, another bigger one forming to my left. I thought it was strange at the time but you always assess a situation based on your knowledge and experience. I’ve never been in this situation before so I thought it could be burning the fields or something, but as the cloud grew it started to behave very strangely. It stopped climbing and instead the wind started to pull a diaphanous sparkling veil across the skyline. Like one of those half hight net curtains in a cafe being drawn. It seemed to reflect the light as though it had glitter in it. Not something I’d seen before. Given the fact many new graves were close by I assume there was a local military presence, and on reflection I think the UAV I saw was probably Ukrainian and on its way to make some more work for the Russian undertakers

Sometimes my life is just odd. I relate these things not for melodramatic effect. They’re just the facts. It’s scary, but also just experiences of life on the road. I was never in any personal danger or under any threat at all thank God, but it’s something I certainly won’t forget.

Unlike this ride today. It’s dull. It’s tedious. It’s like sittting on a plane for 8 hours watching a boring on-bike movie showing all the parasitic life that forms along these arteries. Appealing to the eyes, stomachs and wallets of the passing masses. All trying to distract drivers to come and make a small donation to their jars.

I’m in one such distraction, sitting drinking a coffee and letting the blood flow return to my arse. I’m looking out the window and there are 4 blokes round my bike. Pointing and talking. They’re there for a while. The Bitch is absolutely filthy. She’s scratched and scared. The windscreen is twisted slightly after heavy contact with some scenery. The panniers are dented. There is oil all over the back from a can that the top vibrated off of. The paintwork in the frame is worn through to the metal where my boots have rubbed. The tank has two wear spots where my knees have been. She looks like it’s been in the wars. But she looks beautiful. She looks absolutely perfect. I know people that wouldn’t trust a Ktm to ride to the supermarket. Those same people wouldn’t be seen dead on a bike like The Bitch. Well, that’s their loss.

The prices of hotels in the cities on my route home are still at ‘taking the piss’ levels. I’m not here to sightsee. I’m just mile munching so I find a cheap and I suspect, 90% unoccupied hotel a few miles off to the side at a truck stop. And truck stops means truck driver dinners. My favourite

After dinner, drugs. There must be a dairy drugs den here somewhere, I can smell it. Wander outside the cafe and there is a 24 hour shop next door. And all it sells is stuff for trucks. Where the hell have they hidden it? I close my eyes, follow the scent. Go through a few doors, it’s getting stronger now. Open my eyes… spoons. Another obsession of mine. Anyone that rides with me knows that the left pocket of my jacket contains many sachets of brown sugar, and a spoon. True story.

But no spoons today. Close my eyes.. open.. truck lights.

Again, The Bitch has a broken tail light, probably due to someone smashing their nose into it sniffing her tail in Uzbekistan, and a truck light would look good. But no. Last try. Here we go, I’m getting close, I fall to my knees, open my eyes. Oh yea. COME TO DADDY

Get up and go to breakfast this morning only to be presented with this. Looks like the hotel doubles as a penis reduction clinic. Still, waste not want not. I’ll stick one down my leathers and see if it bonds.

The satnav says 360 miles, 2 turns. That’s going to be interesting. I wish there were easy options to just put the bike on a train in Europe and fast track the hell in and out.

So all I can do is reflect. Again. And rant. Last night I saw something from someone that had completed an ‘Epic’ tour of his local Sainsbury’s car park in Dulwich. I responded, questioning the use of the word ‘Epic’ in this context and he responded as though I’d touched up his granny. Immediately wanting a pissing contest.

Nothing on this planet irks me as much as this modern propensity to use our beautiful language inappropriately. This fuckwangle insisted ‘epic’ means the same as ‘majestic’, despite one being a noun and the other an adjective. “Here is an idea Mr IQ of two. If something is majestic, use the word ‘majestic’, and if it’s epic, then use the word ‘epic’” But no. He still wants to fight.

It’s endemic. Every monosyllabic moron plucks superlatives out of their arse and sticks them all over their mundane mumblings in a desperate attempt to stop them sinking without trace into the social media cesspit.

“Had an EPIC night in with the neighbours discussing the pros and cons of 4 different wooden spoons”

Of course you did Malcolm.

“Hi. I’m Jaqui. I’m an amazing voluptuous Venus with an incredible smile, a nature as bubbly as a glass of fizz and I can knock you up a 5 Michelin star breakfast in the morning”

No Jacqueline. Your figure is a feat of origami using only fatty flesh flaps, you have the brains of a barnacle, the personality of a peanut and the cooking skills of a dog. There. Fixed it for you.

Does my head in. I try to keep out of it. You have to be realistic. I like to think I’m about average at most stuff. Averagely intelligent. Averagely educated. Below average on some things I’d rather not discuss and maybe a little above average at caustic character assassination, but never far from the norm. But most people now seem unable to accept that and are completely incapable of any sort of honest self reflection. I always like to lend them a hand when I meet them

Anyway. These trips aren’t ‘epic’. To me they’re simply adventures. Maybe some of it is about getting older and testing myself too. Not giving in. Keeping the dark thoughts at bay. I can’t emphasise enough how lucky I know I am to do them. But the flip side is they also come with guilt. Guilt at my good fortune. Guilt at my good health. Guilt at my ‘get out jail free’ passport. Guilt over having such an understanding wife and family. And, just occasionally, guilt at being such a selfish old bastard. I worry, too, that all this luck will suddenly come to an end. But I guess that’s just life. Life isn’t fair. That’s a fact.

Anyway, The Bitch is grumpy. She says she wants some selfies of the two of us to send to her mates. I usually insist on staying behind the lens but I want to keep her happy so i make an exception.

Unwilling to pay the price for convenience and a shit, cold coffee I take a 5 minute diversion and find cake and coffee heaven.

Tonight it’s Hamm. Full of German character. I took the smile detector out for a walk. Nothing. Nil. Nada. I do believe the EU has recently introduced a smile tax though. One young bloke stopped next to me on a bike in a service station today. Apparently I was wearing my invisibility leathers. I wonder where he thought the sound of “TWAT” being shouted had come from.

I was sitting the Polish truck stop the other night, watching about the floods they’re fighting. I cannot remember the last time I felt rain. Or even smelt it. Must be back in Kyrgystan a few weeks ago. Surely it’s time. But no. Bonkers.

I’m fuelling up and I can hear some loud quacking. I speak a bit of duck as it happens and it sounds like someone is trying to get my attention. He’s up on the roof. He’s asking if I know any unattached mallards. He’s looking for a mate. His name is Drake, he’s a fit 2m, 50kg 20 year old Scorpio with a steady job with good prospects looking to settle down in a little pond and raise some ducklings. He enjoys diving and sucking weeds. That will only make sense to one person I know

Back out on the road I can smell blood. I hope it’s not mine. On my last day in Russia I came across what looked like a Damien Hurst exhibit. A very large animal, maybe a moose or a bear had very very recently signed out after loosing a fight with a fast moving metal object. A long scrawled signature was laid out in blood along the road and I rode straight through it. It always takes a few days for it to permeate the layers of crap but now it’s reached the exhaust and it’s burning off. Either that or my bollocks are on fire.

All the traffic is slowing down in front of me. They’re all slavishly dropping to the Dutch speed limit. All submitting to the increasingly oppressive omnipresent threat of punishment for daring to ignore Big Brother. It struck me last night as I was waiting to cross a road in Hamm. The closest vehicle was in Latvia but people were still waiting obediently for their permission to cross. Everyone is paranoid about some twat in a hat jumping out the bushes and adding their name to some offence register. You feel it as you come into Europe. You can almost feel yourself being put back in a box. The European road network is awash with technology whose sole purpose is to drop turds in your porridge.

And that’s another attraction of these trip. You can almost feel the shackles falling to the ground when you exit the EU. You learn to live with the ever increasing pressure and control. Obviously all the outlying countries are now doing the same nowadays, but you’re not part of their flock and they generally seem to ignore you

I’m doing a soft landing, staying with my brother and his wife in Holland before returning to the motherland. And treating The Bitch to a night in my brother’s 5 star garage. I hope she doesn’t get any silly ideas.

Final day. I thought I’d celebrate by throwing The Bitch on the road and hurting myself . I was riding out of my brothers village in the pitch black and missed a turn. Went to do a U turn and suddenly I’m in the road and my bike is on my twisted foot OWEWWWW that hurt. I’d calculated the turn using the full width of the road and hadn’t seen the big kerbstones delineating the bike lane in the dark. My bad…. ankle. Two blokes immediately jumped out their cars and helped my right the bike and assess the damage. The bars are slightly turned to the left, I assume they’ve moved in the clamps, but it still rides ok so I’m off and running towards Calais. I’ve got 180 miles to do in 3 hours.

It’s Monday morning and the traffic is horrendous. Miles of motorway queues near every major junction. Filtering through with my confidence now low, my handlebars all askew and my left ankle sticking pins in itself every time I move makes the ride more fractious than I’d like but I make it to the tunnel and on to the train.

There is only one other bike on there. A BMW GS so shiny and clean I can’t bearly look it. He’s with his wife and they’ve been for a weekend away in Normandy. I’m not dissing that. This isn’t a cock waving contest. But he’s not taking to someone who looks like a scarecrow, smells like a tramp and rides a bike without a BMW badge on.

Before I know it I’m home. Back where I started. Completing the circle. Trip number whatever in the series of whatever plus who knows. Unpacking is a 5 minute job. All I need to worry about are the presents for my wife.

I remember asking one rider on a trip what he was going to give his wife when he got back.

“A big bag of washing and a hard-on”

Fair enough. I’ve got the bag of washing, but the only big, fat, solid swelling I can currently offer her is the one on my fucking ankle. I’ll guide her hand to it in the dark. See how that goes

Sit down. Breath out. Think. These last few weeks have done their job perfectly. They’ve got all my favourite emotions out the cupboard and exercised them, often mercilessly, until they’re fully sated and can be safely put away for a while without them moaning they want to go out.

As I’m riding along it would be easy to convince myself that I’m doing what absolutely everyone else wants to do. That it’s everybody’s dream. But of course, it’s not. Pretty well everyone doesn’t give a monkeys. They’re not interested. They would almost pay NOT to do it. And by the same token I’d probably rather slowly slit my shlong with a sharp samurai sword than indulge in their distraction of choice. So I just do these things for me.

Travelling overland like this is often tiring, boring, tedious, and at times even torturous. It’s frustrating, annoying, and can seriously test your patience. You’re often hungry, always filthy and you usually can’t remember what clean clothes feel like. You get bitten, you get sore and you get mad. But all of that can pale into insignificance in the blink of an eye with a smile from a stranger, a wave from a child, a nod from an elder, a laugh from a policeman, coming round a corner or over a hill to be twatted straight in the face with a simply stunning, fuck off view that consumes your entire headspace. Highs and Lows. Quicks and slows. Looking back all I see is a shit tonne of fun.

And if nothing else, this trip proves the old maxim is true.

“Life’s a BITCH”

Until the next time.. thanks for watching