Don’t you love paperwork? I know I do – there is little I enjoy more than sitting down to fill out some complicated official form. OK, you may be detecting a degree of irony here, and you wouldn’t be wrong. The truth is, I hate forms and officialdom in all its guises.

So, here I was, on the very edge of riding a motorcycle again after a five year hiatus. I have found a dealer willing to sell me a bike at a very reasonable price and I had arranged to collect it in two days time. I’m more excited than I have been in a very long time. Best of all, my Spanish driving licence arrived yesterday. Joy! Except that it wasn’t.

I had a UK driving licence but, with the uncertainty of Brexit just around the corner, it seemed prudent to change this for a Spanish licence. The process actually isn’t too horrible and simply involves some basic physiological testing and then sending off your old licence and waiting for the new one to arrive.

But, when my shiny new Spanish licence arrived yesterday, it had only an entitlement to drive cars – it had nothing about my entitlement to ride motorcycles. Pah! In theory, the Spanish licence should be a straight replacement for my UK licence, but something has obviously got lost in the mix. I passed my bike test in the UK in 1980 (Hells Teeth! – can that really be right? Almost forty years ago?) but for some reason some person in the Traffic department of the local Guardia Civil apparently feels that I’d be better to stick to four wheels.

So close…

Fortunately I have someone on my side – my Gestor (basically, an attorney) here in the village in which I live. He’s smart, sharp and he’s on the case. I just hope that he can explain to the gentlemen in the smart uniforms that I really am entitled to ride a motorcycle.

Being so close to riding again makes me appreciate how much being a motorcyclist is a part of me, even when I’m not doing it every day. I just hope that the Spanish authorities can be persuaded that I have the right to do it here, otherwise this may be motorcycling of the most minimalist kind – i.e. without a motorcycle!

Fingers crossed…