Days 173 - 175

I had a pretty busy day on Monday, a few hours work in the morning, a quick meeting with my boss at lunchtime and an opticians appointment in the afternoon. I barely had enough time to get from one place to another in time, let alone think about eating, so on Monday I stayed on the CD straight and narrow with great ease.

Tuesday was a similarly busy type of day. I went to a new motorbike riding school and finally did my CBT (Compulsory Basic Training) so I can ride on the road as a learner. I've been struggling with geared motorbikes so I did my CBT on an automatic, at the instructor's suggestion. He said if I get some practice on the road with an automatic, it'll help build my confidence and hopefully, when I ride a geared bike again in the near future, I will find it a whole lot easier. He was very right, I went for a couple hours ride with the instructor and a very nice lady and had a really great time, didn't feel stressed in the traffic and passed my assessment with flying colours! My new instructor said a lot of riding schools will try and teach new riders how to ride geared bikes without riding an automatic first and they used to too but they found doing it this way required less visits, cost the rider less and ended up with a more confident and happy learner rider. At first I thought it sounded like a bit of a rip off, but now I completely agree. If I had done it this way originally, I think I could have been on the road ages ago.

Anyway, much to my chagrin, I'm going to have to buy myself a scooter this week. I don't plan to own it more than a month or two and as soon as I feel confident, I'm going to redo my CBT on a geared bike then sell the scooter and buy something a bit more 'motorbike'ish. I did consider hiring a scooter for a while, but I think it'll be a bit of a waste of money. A scooter can't depreciate too much in value over a couple of months and as long as nobody tries to steal it, I should get most of my money back when I sell it on. I think I might have to sell my bike jacket too, it's enormous on me now, even with he quilted lining in it. I know that ladies bike jackets in bigger sizes are quite hard to get so I'm hoping that because I've only worn it about a dozen times and I've looked after it very well, I should be able to get enough for it to buy a smaller one.

Today, I've had a day off and caught up with a bit of housework and computer maintenance. Unfortunately, I got a bit bored and also weakened and ate some pizza. Ho-hum, back on the wagon tomorrow........... I've got another couple of very busy days ahead so hopefully that'll help.