I am now lagging behind Mrs. Skudder. Last year I got a scooter in January. I enjoyed it so much I bought a second-hand motorbike in about June and then Jayne and I got our CBT so we could ride it. Since then Jayne has joined several womens motorbike groups and been off to various events with them, including a weekend camping. All I have done is go down to Brighton with her for the Ace Cafe rideout and gone out on a couple group rides – on the first one I came off and on the second one I got lost.In the year since we have had bikes, I have ridden about 1400 miles on mine and Jayne has done over 3000 miles on hers. We went and did our theory tests in the autumn. Jayne took two attempts so for a very short time I was ahead of her, but that has all changed now.

Last week she had a few days instruction down in Haywards Heath and passed module 1 of her practical test. This week she passed her module2 so now she has a full licence, while I am still on a provisional one. On Monday she she is going up to Essex to pick up her new bike. I got it for her at Christmas but now she is allowed to ride it.

After that, if we go out together I will be on a 125cc Yamaha with L plates and she will be on a 900cc Kawasaki Vulcan so I will literally be lagging behind. It will be August at the absolute earliest that I can even think about taking my test so that I can at least go on the motorway with her.

Of course it is all just one more side-effect of cancer. I got my diagnosis a few days before the theory test. At that point we had no idea whether it was really bad or not but I decided to be optimistic and take the test anyway. By the time we found out that I probably will survive it there has been no opportunity for me to find the time to take a test.

It has been a whirlwind of hospital appointments, operations and treatment. Throughout chemotherapy I was not fit to ride anyway. Doing the practical test really involves being able to spend a week having instruction and I couldn’t take the chance of having to bail out if I got an appointment, and I certainly didn’t want to do anything to postpone the medical side.

I was tempted to do the training with Jayne as I was on leave that week and could have managed it, but then I got an appointment to see the surgeon and have some pre-assessments done in the middle of that week, so a good job I didn’t.

I’m actually very happy for Jayne. She loves riding her bike and its great to see her happy. It was also good to see her get her full bike licence before our son who has been riding for several years. But I would be lying if I said that I am not a bit jealous that she can now go on motorways, carry passengers and ride bigger bikes. I’m not jealous of the bike though – cruisers really do not appeal to me. I can’t see the appeal. Much rather have a ‘normal’ bike or even a cafe racer.

Mind you I am the same with cars. I see somebody driving a flash Land Rover and can’t help wondering why they didn’t buy a decent restored Morris Minor and bank the change.