I  had been moaning even before we left because I had booked the ferry for a short weekend when the other half had booked extra days and these to him were now wasted.
He loaded the bikes onto the trailer on the Thursday and stored them in the garage ready to hook up and go early Friday morning. We set off at 2.45 to catch the 12.00 ferry.
We had arranged to leave the car and trailer at a house near the ferry port and ride the bikes over, which if any one knows us would make a change as we usually trailer all the way.
We got to the house at about 10.00 unload the bikes and hay presto my brave would not start!! Bill had done a little maintenance before we left and had put a new petrol tap on and had redone the carb as in France it would not stop leaking he also put a new coil on . He had put petrol in the tank at home, started it and everything seemed to be fine, in fact he said it started on half a kick, but the darn thing would not start at the friend’s house. So Plug out – oiled up so they burnt it clean and replaced it - still not joy. Undid the points cover and that was full of water so quickly we dried it out and a squirt of wd, Bill kicked it and it sprang into life. The owner of the house said leave the car keys, he would move the car and leave the keys in a plant pot on Sunday as they were out for the day on Sunday. So off we set to the ferry port at about 11.00.
We didn’t get to the ferry port though as the brave cut out at the first roundabout going into the town on looking petrol was gushing out the carb again so bill said turn the petrol off and ride with just the petrol in the carb. Turned the petrol off and this did not make any difference, the new petrol tap was faulty. What were we going to do now? We somehow had to stop the petrol flooding the carb so thinking about it I decided that the rubber petrol hose need a kink in it to stop the petrol and all I could think of using was a hair band and tying it around the kink to stop the petrol. This worked ok if not going a long distance but we had to travel on the other side of the water as well. On the boat I thought about it a little more and decided to try and use a hair grip and wooden coffee stirrers from the boat to squash the petrol pipe and let only a little petrol into the carb but this did not work. Anyway I am getting ahead of myself back to check in at the port:-

We get to check in at the port by 11.30 but they would not let us queue  for the boat as they said one of the tickets were not any good and we would have to go back to the front office. This we did and it turned out that the agent we booked with had not changed my ticket. We had changed the ticket as it was my daughters to begin with and she could not get leave from the army to use it so I had it off her. we changed the dunkerque to Dover crossing dates from the 2nd august  to   the 26th august  the Dover to Dunkirk did not need to be changed as she was returning to Germany on Friday the 24th but the agent had not changed the booking with Norfolkline even thought they had charged me so the whole ticket had been cancelled. We had to call the agent and they had to confirm to Norfolkline that I had changed the booking with them but they had not let Norfolkline know and that it was their fault. Norfolkline redid the ticket as it was not me at fault but by now it was 12.05 and we had missed our boat so we were put on the next one at 2.00. It was luck we were on bikes as the cars were full all day so we would not have got across the water if we had been in the car.
Arriving in France I didn’t even get out the port before the bike had stopped. if I tied the band around the pipe 4 time it stopped the petrol completely is I tied it around 3 time it seemed to work but kept flicking off with the vibration on the bike so I had another think and decided to try using a hair grip as well as the band this seemed to do the trick so off we went. On the motorway not enough petrol was getting into the carb and I was kangarooing so I had to keep bending the pipe in different angles as we were going along to give it more or less petrol.

We did get to the camp site in the end and it did not take long for a few clever people to solve my problems (a big thank you to every one that helped). The new petrol tap had a kink in the cork and some one took it away and sorted that. The needle had come away from the clip on the bowl so I was told and this again was soon remedied.
The rally was as usual very good and we even visited a brewery (old with no beer). We also had the pleasure of elvice twice in one day.
The trip back to the port we had left the camp site by 10.00 to make sure we made it to the port. We got there to get on the 12.00 ferry instead of the 14.00 which we thought brilliant as we would get home quicker as it was a 6 hour trip on the English side for us.
We get to the house at 14.00 to load the bikes on the trailer but could not find the car keys in the plant pot we were told they would be in. we didn’t have a mobile number to get in touch with the people so had to start phoning around to see if any one had the mobile number as we thought they might not be back until about 19.00. We had no joy getting a mobile number so there was nothing to do but relax and hope they would not be too late. They came back at about 16.30 which was not as bad as we had feared. We loaded the bikes and made for home.
We got home about 23.00
Its not a holiday unless we have problems but next time not so many please.

Lorraine Herbert