boxer race project

i've been so wrapped up with the aermacchi recently that i've let the boxer project slip into the background, that changed today, up at sparrow's fart, sweary mick turned up at 0545 hrs to keep me company, he's armed with salmon sanwiches on brown bread, a flask of strong coffee and some home-made ginger cake, it's raining heavily and off we go, the roads are flooded, surface water, limited visibility, fog, dark and cold, the traffic is light, just articulated lorry's delivering their cargo to supermarkets, m1, m25, m2, a2, all drift by in that strange, misted up windscreen, heavy spray and limited light thing, sweary mick keep's passing me little nip's of hot, strong java, the 250 miles pass in what seems like an hour, the dartford crossing bringing back memories of me and barse riding side by side over the bridge on our way to the kent custom bike show, did i mention it was rather inclement today? past the 'three mariner's' pub and along the single track road to jim's house, sweary mick guides me into the driveway, bloody hell it's tight, i have to fold the mirror's in on the van to get into the drive, unload the boxer into jim's workshop and we spend the next couple of hours shooting the shit, catching up after twenty years and discussing what we want jim to wave his majick stick at regarding the boxer, we are away at 1130 hr's, stopping to grab a butty ovelooking the thames estuary, [did i mention it was raining by the way?]the boxer is going to get what it deserves, a right royal shoeing, some serious bee-haitch-pee, not cheap, [quality never is], it's a nightmare journey home, it hasn't got light all day long really, we are back and sitting in my shed at 1600hrs, drinking tea and eating hot mince pie's, nearly five hundred miles under our belt's, fuck it, it's xmas, fancy a peroni?.......