I can’t ride through northern France or Belgium without thinking of Roger McGough’s war poem about “In Flanders fields in northern France, they’re all doing a brand new dance.”
Of course, on arrival in France, I couldn’t ride at all. I stopped for petrol, and clearly picked the wrong pump at the wrong time, because the bike ceased to speak to the key fob and refused to start. When I tried to roll it out of the way, it yelled at me loudly.
Once I had tried repeatedly to start it, called the dealer for the override code and managed to move it away from whatever was blocking the signal, it did start up quite nicely. The only conclusion is that it is not the keyfob battery, but an active cell tower.
Problem One, solved.
Problem Two was a Porsche trying to ride pillion and flashing his lights at me. I pulled over, largely to get out of his way, and realised he’d been trying to tell me my bag was slipping badly. The vibrations on the train had jiggled things a bit loose. So, there at the side of the A16, I reorganised and re-strapped everything and ceased to think nasty thoughts about entitled sports car drivers. This was the point at which I realised I hadn’t packed any hi-vis, or a few other heavily recommended bits for travel in Europe. This incident induced some paranoia about my luggage for the rest of the day.
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