Well, that's this weekend sorted

As I approched my place of work this morning I noticed a distinctly
unpleasant noise coming from the engine. Um, what to do now? Go faster, then
I can't hear it. That worked, until I arrived at work. A through
investigation of looking beneath the fairing, blipping the throttle, and
listening intently, failed to either diagnose or cure the problem.

Making a metal note to investigate further before riding home, the day
progressed, as days are wont to do.

A little more intent listening, not forgetting the blipping of the throttle,
was undertaken at the end of the days work related activity. Once again,
this failed to cure the problem. A look at the oil sight glass demonstrated
a demonstrable lack of oil. Ok, unlikely to be a cure, but worth a try. A
gentle pootle to the garage, one mile up the road, was followed by the
purchase and infusion of a litre of petrol forecourt finest oil. This was
followed by another litre. Ok, so there is now oil in the sight glass, one
smoke later, and it was about half way up. The engine still sounded fuckin
awful.

So the limit of my roadside repair abilities reached, or to use the
terminology in our new training manual, the edge of my personal skill
envelope, I determined it was time to call Britannia Rescue. A very nice
lady assured me someone would be there in under an hour. They all do that,
sir. An hour and a half later, which wasn't bad given the "Friday night on
the A14" situation, SOS motorcycle recovery arrived. Now, the terminally
dul^H^Hobservant amongst you will have remembered that these are the people
who recovered me following a puncture in Cambridge, in October last year. Lo
and behold, same guy. Who, surprisingly enough remembered me.

A brief explanation of the situation was given, and the bike started. "Cam
chain" was his immediate reply. Arse, oh well, at least I know where to
start.

A trundle back along the A14, fortunately the accidents were on the other
side of the carriageway, back to home and the bike was tucked up in the
garden.

The paperwork gives a diagram of a bike, with the instruction to indicate
areas of damage to the bike, prior to recovery. "Err, just about everywhere"
was what he said, before colouring in most of the picture. There was also a
line given to write the general condition of the bike "All over generally
abused", which I found amusing.

So there you go, my job for the weekend is fixing the bike.