Well, I now own a bike again for the first time in several years – I completed the paperwork and paid this nice gentlemen at CustomShop Granada (https://www.facebook.com/predicadores.granada ) and he has agreed to keep this Suzuki 250 Marauder for me as long as necessary until I get my licence problem sorted.

Nice man at CustomShop Granada

Because, as noted in the previous post, although I now own a bike, I am suddenly no longer a qualified motorcyclist as the Spanish licencing authorities managed to forget my motorcycle entitlement when they issued my new Spanish driving licence. I passed my motorcycle test in the UK in 1980 and I have been both an instructor and a DOT examiner as well as writing for several motorcycle magazines and websites, but as far as the Spanish authorities are concerned, my driving record is entirely motorcycle free. I’m hoping that it’s simply a mistake and that it will be easy and quick to fix, but I’m not holding my breath…

OK, so I can’t ride it yet, but just standing beside it makes me smile…

While my Gestor looks into the licence problem, I have been hanging out on ebay looking for riding gear. It’s been a long time since I bought anything on ebay, but I’m happy to note that the same rules seem to apply – auctions that end in the evening or at the weekend often get good prices. Stuff that ends during the working week and between nine and five tends to go cheap. Say hello to what looks like a jolly spiffy armoured leather motorcycle jacket for me for £11 and one for my wife for just £9!

Of course, when they turn up here in Spain, they may turn out to be hopeless, but at least scouring ebay is fun and it keeps me from thinking about my current lack of a motorcycle licence. Because the sun is out, the weather is good, I have tickets for two for the Jerez MotoGP at the beginning of May and I so want to get back out on the road on two wheels!

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…

We spent Sunday making what looks like a miniscule  motorbike shaped space in our tiny downstairs terrace, heaving old concrete Spanish sinks and plants upstairs, guided by our new foster dog, Scooby, who is also too large for our weeny rooms.

This got me thinking about space.  I have real problems with being inside for long and I am craving, just craving wide open spaces just now.  I am looking at the patch of blue Montefrio sky out there and I want to be on top of a hill, among the almond blossom and just walk and walk and walk.

We live in a world where everything we want, the whole globe can be brought to our desktop at the touch of a keyboard, we can find out any fact about any place without having to move from our seats…so why bother to move at all? We can virtual travel. It is safer, cheaper, the photos are definitely better and there is no risk of illness or danger.

And that is it isn´t it? No danger. In those big empty spaces, we are free to explore and to meet whatever unexpected may be out there. A twist in the road, a rutting stag, a stream to ford, I walk along the same path almost every day and not much changes, then just sometimes, an animal will spring across my path…or a rockfall will block my way.  Not real danger, but the spaces we explore present us with challenges that the web cannot. And without challenges we stagnate. We ease into a comfort zone that makes us question only that which threatens this ease.

The motorbike shaped area out back promises wide spaces, challenges and unforeseen happenings.

Cannot wait!