And this is what The Twat did in his pants on the way this morning. It’s like giving a shoulder ride to a baby that’s shit it’s nappy
The Russians have an app that gives fuel availability, albeit delayed. His first target of Pskov shows no fuel by St Petersburg should be ok.
You have to book an exit slot out of Estonia. Turn up. Wait 5 minutes. I’m pushed through. Just me. Ok then.
10 minutes. Out of Lithuania. It’s 11:30am. Russian border. One car in front of me. Re-fucking-sult. This will be a breeze. They’re celebrating my last visit with a royal border crossing. He takes his passport to the booth. And she points to a waiting room. Not just for him. For everyone crossing. There are a load of foot passengers coming through too. And each one is being interviewed. Separately. For ages. After a couple of hours a couple of other bikes with Russian/German riders appears too. And wait. 5 hours later. 5 FUCKING HOURS
. 5 hours of watching a bloke come out of a door, call a name that isn’t his, and disappear again. 5 hours of watching people that have arrived later go before him. 5 FUCKING HOURS. This would try the patience of a saint. And as it so happens, a bus load of saints arrives and joins the queue. They all stand around patiently. None of them can show they are less patient than the others. It’s a game nobody must loose. At 5 hours be is called for his interview. Same as before. Same questions. Same phone deep dive but at least The Twat had the good sense to go through and delete all the “troublesome” messages before we arrived.
So 6 hours. The car that was in front of me is still here. This CANNOT BE FUCKING HAPPENING AGAIN. IT. CAN. NOT. I’m not having this. I push my way through past the other cars and bikes right up to the barrier. Fuck um. I’m going to do it. I’m just going to run. See if they can catch me. I ask The Twat if he can take one last picture of me before I’m shot to pieces like the end of Butch Cassidy and the sun dance kid. He says getting the camera out at the Russian border would be like covering your knob in jam and ramming it into a wasps nest. So he does it. Twat.
The Russian tells The Twat “you’re next” just to wind him up, before the barrier rises and the Russians ride out. What a strange sense of humour they have..
Out of the corner of his eye The Twat sees St Francis step out from the hut, take a surreptitious look about, then yell “BOLLOCKS” at the top of his voice before putting his hands gently together in front of him and walk slowly back in to wait.
8 hours. Nothing. Then they decide rather than the usual hand search of my panniers they want them REMOVED and put through luggage x-Ray scanner. REMOVED
Never ever at any border ever before in the history of bikerkind has that happened. The Twat is boiling. I can see his eyes bubbling. I know the signs. He’s closer than I’ve ever seen him to doing something extremely inconvenient. Off they come and into the X-Ray room they go. There are a dozen people in front and the winner of Russia’s anal bag checker the last 20 years running is opening people’s packets of biscuits and checking they have the right number in. That no forks with 6 splines come through. That no eggs contain double yolks. He’s going to be checking his own bollocks in a minute. One on each hand. Each in a separate jar. CU@T.
But a young lady checker with a face like a 1970 Volvo has spotted the potential de-gloving of his bollocks and has offered to check The Twat’s bags. She has lovely bright green and very naughty eyes and a good pair of knees but her lips stick out like the aforementioned Volvo’s bumpers. Still, I’m sure they must be good for something or another
. Anyway, she gives the panniers a cursory rummage, runs her slim hands over his biscuits and gives his eggs a gentle squeeze and lets him through with a giggle.
Game on. I’m done I think. So does The Twat. He’s got one pannier back on and he’s fitting the other when he hears a “Niet” from Satan’s little helper that is processing my paperwork. She comes stomping over and tells me I need to be x-rayed too, and I must be NAKED. NAKED? Never have I ever had to be fucking NAKED for an x-ray. The Twat is twitching. Tears, or possibly blood, is coming from his eyes. The dummy is up to launch pressure… he looks pleadingly at DL240 but she can’t help him. He opens the panniers, throws everything on the floor, rips them off and goes away to sulk. I have to totter off naked with everyone watching down to the X-ray machine alone. He’s done. He’s had it.
9:30. 10 hours. The paperwork suddenly appears as though she’s been working on it solidly instead of maintaining her 1% 99% work shirk balance
. The Twat is in a daze. He’s on autopilot. As we pull away we see Saint Mary of all people run out of the office and shout “if that mother fucking **** doesn’t get his wanking fucking arse in gear in the next 2 minutes I’m going to nail his sorry cock to a cross and burn it”.
See what I mean.
We go to the first petrol station. The desk of the insurance agent is empty. a trucker tells the Twat something like “one shop 25-30km left side”. Should be easy enough. NOT. It’s almost dark. There is a random village. A random shop. The twat walks in. “Green card? Insurance?” A random woman says “Sorry, no one round here can help you”. He walks out. Rides 2 meters and spots a light on in a small shed with a neon sign.
Walks in. 24 hour insurance. It’s a 6ft square shed with a bed in. She takes £40 for a random piece of paper that is probably worthless but could possibly be priceless. Pskov is dark and intimidating. It’s nearly 11 and his old eyes are struggling so I steer him through the melee to an ancient Soviet hotel between a park and blocks of flats, or possibly a prison. Whatever, I’m sure I’ll be safe on my own here tonight thanks all the same. But then as he leaves he gives me a pat and tells me he loves me. That’s all a girl needs.
This morning he opens his curtains and a finds a face staring at him. A face that’s making him seriously question his latest life choices.
It’s time for him to choose fight or flight. An easy day back to the border or another 200 miles away from it. Jesus Christ it’s not life or death, hopefully. Let’s not overdramatise it. He’s been to St Petersburg before many years ago but this time it’s very different. All the fuel stations we’ve seen so far have been coned off and empty. The Russians at the border said 92 fuel is available in St Petersburg, but very much advised against going north towards Murmansk from there. That will have to wait for another time. His stomach is saying flight. And his head is saying flight too, most of the time. Deep deep down, in the hard wired, uncompromising and unchangeable character traits locked forever in his DNA he knows he's going in, but it doesn't stop his other 2 dozen personalities trying to persuade him the opposite.
My “normal” range is less than the 220 miles to St Petersburg. And he’s on his own now. His phone isn’t working. At all. No data and it won’t connect to the internet or wi-fi either. That’s really unnerving him, but he tells himself he has a SatNav and cash and that's all he really needs. The hotel restaurant is closed/derelict so he takes a walk on a coffee hunt. Someone has turned up the sad to the max. It’s grey, it’s cold, it’s raining and everyone on the street has got up, gone to their face drawer and pulled out an unhappy one to wear. Last night on the way in we went past a shop selling happy faces, but it had gone out of business. It’s that kind of a place.
He can detect the scent of a Nana and baked goods in the air, the perfect combination, and follows it through the rain to a warm oasis with steamed up windows. Warm apple pie and coffee. There is life here at least. He is a seriously fucked up individual. His emotions seem to spend all their time just fighting each other. Going back and forth like someone is injecting him with one thing then the complete opposite. But I know him better than anyone. He loves to just stand in the street like a visitor from another world. He creates an indelible memory by just standing still and completely saturating his brain with the noises, the smells, the people, the rain, the cold. He looks down at his feet to root himself in this spot. This spot he can recall in detail at any moment. He can stand in the local Sainsburys and look at his feet and remember life doesn't have to be like this, and that these feet have stood in a cold puddle in Pskov and watched people with outdated clothes and problematical lives walking to dead end jobs just to keep madness from their doors. And that he has the means to leave that place just through virtue of a small paper document in the pocket of his jacket hanging behind an insecure door of a semi derelict hotel a mile away. This is him. This is his happy/unhappy place. This is what his tiny mind needs to consume in order to function.
A slow walk back. Check out. Load up. Traffic lights. Left or right. Fight or flight. He just closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to be responsible for the decision, but he knows I can read his mind. So I choose left. I’m not giving up.
It’s all easy to say..
. And then said “Poland”. We turned round and stopped at a petrol station 200m up the road. The luggage dismounted and a truck driver immediately shouted “Poland” at them too. 
but it can feel like the most depressing city on the planet at the same time. 
