close call

Leaving Stromness to night for reasons to long to go into here I had tied on the back of the bike a big bag of shopping a pair of waterproof trousers and my separate hard drive with three years worth of photos. So after a good blat up the Howe bray and down the other side (surely you mean 80kph officer) I realised to my horror the back seat was empty. I quickly retraced my steps to find gulls hovering over the contents of my shopping bag. Approaching I see the hard drive lying in the road along with my oilskins and some assorted veg! The drive its self was wrapped in a towel and then in a bin bag to protect it from the rain. It was looking well rat chewed as I grab it and shove it in my coat. All the time I am telling my self don’t stress…don’t stress. Mind you as I am saying that I am kicking an empty tomato can and an empty soup can in to the ditch. The food is the last of my concerns as I head home…don’t stress…don’t stress. I get in doors and have to piss before I can bring my self to look or unwrap the poor thing. The bag is in tatters and the towel is ripped and poking out…..ooooer. With it all pealed back the box is scuffed about the corners where it was abraded through…..oooer Its connected up and switched on….it makes spinning up noises all be it with an ominous sort of tick from time to time. As the computer boots up the picasa icon stays unlit. Oh well I think, I was hoping for a lot. Mind you, you have to have a wiggle of all the connectors don’t you. Well bugger me if the icon don’t light up!! After a moment the photo store opens and I have the last album I used in view. Its un responsive though and I sit clicking the mouse and tapping the drives scared case…..the screen flickers a bit and starts to work, I can run up and down the album list and select things oh joy oh joy!!. As far as I can see its working away fine. Its this sort of thing that will send me grey haired, well if I wasn’t allready..lol.
It looks to me it went along the road for at least forty yards at a fair lick. The reason its survived is down to the towel wrap and the electrical engineering skills of Mick Rennie who built it of as solid stock as he could because that’s what he does. The man is an engineering genius of the first order. (last time I saw him he was designing and building a steam engine from complete scratch to run a Suzuki alternator just for some thing to do whilst he was between jobs) Nice one Mick I take my hat off to you!! I owe you big style!!!