Spiffy (Scott)

Finally the PX is back from the panel beaters, and has been knocked back into shape and is all shiny and lovely again. A very nice job again by Ahmed and lads at Scooterworld Chiswick, I even got a 200ml top up of 2-stroke oil chucked in for free, which was very nice of them. I had always been in two minds about the Italian flag stripes on the scooter, and had planned to take them off after Italy, I was hoping they will make the scooter more Caribinieri-friendly, but now they have gone from the rear cowls, I'm not so sure. It looks kind of bare. I think that an old PX125 decal from the 80's may do the trick in the stripe area.

I am very pleased to have the little beasty back and have been roaring all over London today. It was raining while I rode to my first two clients, my new armoured trousers were nice and warm (a little too warm when I left them on at the first clients!) and the roads were very greasy, my boots were slipping on the tarmac at the lights, but the tyres gripped super well (Michelin S1s) even on the plethora of white lines and steel manhole covers that litter the every street in London. On my umpteenth 1st-2nd-3rd-2nd-1st-2nd-3rd-4th-for-a-nano-second-3rd-2nd-1st of the day I am so looking forward to a nice long run, with lighter traffic. Chelsea this morning was truly awful. Too many Range Rovers, too many stupid people in those Range Rovers talking on the phone.

As far as prep is going, the front rack is fitted, I'm not such a fan of the look, lucky it's a clip-on. Pick-up the back rack tomorrow morning, am slightly worried as the bags I bought are massive. Trial load tomorrow night, but with a MacBook Pro, Power adaptor, SLR, long lens and flash head, as well as half of Halfords in spares and tools, packing will be an interesting experience. I have everything except a second pair of vice grips and some type of dayglo Sam Brown belt thing to go over my coat. I have about a bottle of oil with 300ml of 2 stroke left, the reservoir holds 1.5 litres, which at 2% should work out to about 1.5 litres for a 1000 miles. So I am glad Tim has plenty so I can thieve some! (I'm secretly hoping it's cheaper in Italy than the £10 a litre here)

And finally I am going to get European breakdown cover tomorrow. I would hate to be pushing my Vespa to Dusseldorf as Tim's zooms past on the back of a truck. I retract my last texted comment to Tim. You are sensible.