It's amazing what tiredness can do to your brain

And stress, probably, if we're honest.

For a couple of days I've been wondering where David had put the bike...

It's a 600 Bandit, so not huge, but not exactly tiny. I kept thinking "I must go and check in the barn", but every time I went I was doing something else. [Usually involving going up a ladder and trying to pluck up courage to walk on "naked" joists/lambourdes; it ain't happening.]

Well, this morning M. Alain wanted the hose (which I'd left in the barn), so I took him to it and he carted it off, then I had a good look around. Not difficult - it's open and apart from piles of wood/bags of lime/hemp it's not much more than knee height. The bike wasn't even hiding behind the shower!

I picked up the phone to call David earlier than normal, my head playing "someone's taken the bike on top of everything else" and was just waiting for the ringing to start when it flashed into my head: the bike is being serviced in Bar-sur-Seine.

Oh, how grateful am I for that?

VERY: thank you gods-of-looking-after-little-black-motorbikes!

Am I going to feel (really) silly when David reads this? Yes, of course; but it's only fair - I laugh at him when he does silly things, so on the extremely rare occasions I do something spectacularly stupid he can *enjoy*!
[Sorry, I don't know an emoticon for tongue-in-cheek, for "rare"!]