The trip back on the Lambretta was slowed down considerably by the engine’s electronic contact points closing up so that the timing combination of points and spark plug became out of synchronisation, not right. This affected the power and each hill I did in second gear. I kept resetting the points but after a while they would be closing up again. I had a spare set of points so I managed to replace but the same problem kept occurring.  Anyway, I stuck to the Hume Highway and limped past the border where everyone had to stop for fruit fly inspection. Then idled past that bloody Gundagai Dog, but wherever I could order large T-bones in cafes along the way to ease the troubles of heart and Lambretta. It helped!  The problem with the points was now so acute and the going so slow that often I saw the same landscape and same farmhouse twice.

  In those days the traffic was not bad, and while riding the Lambretta I finally thought out the problem of the closing gap of the contact points. It was just before that big hill near Camden that I figured it was not the points at fault but that bit of six cornered bauxite or Bakelite that was wearing so quickly. Each corner of this Bakelite item made the points open up at every rotation, which in turn would give the spark to the plug. I tested it by putting a tiny speck of grease on it. Like magic, the rest of the trip was without any closing of the contact points. As I triumphantly entered the Revesby neighbourhood I passed my dear mother who, as so often, was walking home with her shopping trolley loaded up with the family’s food. It was nice to sleep in my own bed.

There now came a period of serious consolidation and reflection. Those Melbournian girls in need of Dutchmen were put on the bottom shelf and my search for relief from Ma paw and her five daughters in preference to some one’s real daughter would now be pursued much more seriously but also locally. The time for inward looking and coming to grips with reality was of the essence. No more far away pipe dreams, regurgitating past events. My sunburnt scarred nose needed careful rehabilitation and I traded my Lambretta in for an ex-police motor bike with side-car. It was a genuine police blue coloured Triumph 650 CC with a lovely sound. This was a serious bike and cars in front of me would notably slow down. I was drunk with power and imagined being a real policeman, fining any motorists seen smiling with happy girl friends.