It was Jam Night at the Golden Halo, and I reclined in a well worn leather armchair as some irritating student strangled an acoustic guitar, howled and inspired my derision, the fact that he could perform all of these tasks at once being his only real talent.

I shared my table with my musical partner, and my old old guitar teacher, now raised to the level of close friend, and financier of this evenings merriment. Without warning, he slammed his drink onto the table, plucked his cigar from between his lips, and interrogated me.

“When are you departing for Wales, Wolfe?”

“Tomorrow” I replied “The wedding begins at 3pm”

His eyebrow climbed his forehead.

“I see. Do you care to explain to me how you plan on achieving that goal? Unless I’m very much mistaken, you are almost completely penniless, and your motorcycle lies in many pieces upon the floor of your fathers garage. The time now is 11:15, giving you less than 15 hours, and the wedding is approximately 250 miles away”

“You raise a good point my friend, however the plan is simple, and, if you’ll lend me your ear I shall put flesh on the bones of your confusion.

When these drinks are done, and yonder buxom bar wench has ejected us from the premises, pausing perhaps only to whisper her telephone number into my ear, I shall hurry to said garage and perform a feat of engineering brilliance unrivalled since the time of Brunel himself! I should be there by the witching hour, and, allowing eight hours to ride the distance, as I’m sure you remember the great antiquity of my motorcycle, that allows me a heady seven hours to completely reassemble the engine, mount it in the frame, rewire, reattach ancillaries such as wheels and saddle, gather my personal effects and depart. The only difficulties I anticipate are the crushing cold of this icy February night and the need to maintain total silence during the rebuild so as not to awake my evil and psychotic father, who’s bedroom window is painfully close to said garage”

My outpouring seemed to have dramatically unsettled my kind friends normally unruffled countenance, and after several seconds of staring disbelief, he picked up his drink and settled back into his chair.

“Your mad!” he spluttered “Even if you get that blasted rotbox to splutter back to life, which I doubt even a team of mechanics with a budget to rival the Russian space program could, You’ll almost certainly be killed on the roads, there is ice everywhere, and heavy snow forecast for tomorrow!”