Derryn, this one's for you.

  Today's picture may appear to show something boring and innocuous but for the last twelve hours it was the centre of my world. Things kicked off very early in Essex and when the trailer showed up, there was a story attached. A driving manoeuvre had changed its normal state and an investigation was needed.

  Once the rest of the prep was out of the way, it was time to take a look at the damage and make a call. Actually, a couple of calls. To be precise, non-stop calls for about an hour and a half. The process started with diagnosis and finding someone who could help with that. Next was finding the necessary spares and making sure they weren't located light years away.

  The spares would need to be fitted so an engineer/mechanic/specialist was sought and this is where the momentum lost its pep. By which I mean ran headlong into a large wall and died. All of a sudden the flurry of calls turned into waiting for someone to call me back and I had a hunch it was terminal, I knew the phone wasn't going to magically ring with an enthusiastic, available engineer in the vicinity, desperate to help out. 

Apparently simple.

  The genius suggestion arrived that as we were in a small business park, there might be a person with sufficient skills to aid us. Across the way was a car customiser and this gave me an excellent excuse to go and gawp at a couple of stunning muscle cars. As beautiful as the Mustang was, it was the Chevy Malibu that rocked my world with it's eight point three litre V8 engine. Yes, you did read that right and yes it did sound amazing but the mechanic wasn't feeling helpful so I went to the only other option, a guy who repaired cars and air conditioning units called Derryn. Fortunately, he was quite confident he could help. So confident that I set about stripping the trailer coupling meaning that I was now committed to repairing the fault.

  With the broken part in my bag I set off on an eighty mile round trip to buy the replacement. It was dropped proudly on the counter of the spares dealer who, well... as this was a new piece of tech to me, I hadn't realised it needed to be further stripped to reveal the broken piece and this was a supplier, not a fitter so they couldn't help. There was a vague memory of a bike dealers on the way so I grabbed the part and went there. Being a biker means belonging to a big family so I was ushered into the workshop where my helpful brothers assisted in the dismantling. Result! Then back to the shop to get the spares and back onto the bike to zip back to base.

  I went straight to Derryn and we set to work rebuilding the unit ready for fitting. After some fiddling and a lot of ingenuity it was ready to be put into the trailer and tested. Mission accomplished. Though he doesn't really get much of a mention, all of that wouldn't have been possible without Derryn's help and for that he is owed a massive debt of gratitude. What also wasn't mentioned was that I found out that Derryn is a Ducati riding biker. Of course he is.

  

Kirk out

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