If it wasn't for the sunshine....

..... I'd be pretty pissed off so far.
After our breakfast we had the most glorious of riding for a couple of hours. We had no idea where we were, we simply road roads that were going south - this meant sometimes single track roads, sometimes windey roads through quaint villages and farm- lands (only once or twice did we find ourselves up a dead end, but who cares, we were having fun)
The trouble started at around F-something (as I say we weren't really taking notice of where we were). We stopped to fill up with fuel and then set off on a lovely straight road with minimal traffic - absolutely wonderful. After about half an hour of 50mph (that's quite fast for us) we slowed for a roundabout. As I tried to pull out of it my bike lost all power. She just wouldnt pull.
We dropped off the road and whipped the engine cover off in the hope of finding something loose or broken (you can fix loose and broken things) but there was nothing untoward to be seen.
I couldn't do anything other than limp on at 20mph in the hope the Vespa-fairies were looking over me.
15 minutes down the road we passed a motorcycle workshop - I spun round and went in. This was clearly a "big bike" workshop but the chap seemed interested enough in our problem. He imeadiately diagnosed a burnt Bougie (spark plug - fortunately I've learnt a bit of French scooter language through my work on the Manurhin Scooter)
I had a spare plug so we changed that but I must say I wasn't wholly satisfied with the improvement. We continued to scratch our heads and talk about the problem. Then our man suddenly offered the advice that we should be careful what petrol we are using...
"SP 95 - OK, SP98 - OK, Mais SP95E10 - Non" and he emphasised the "non" with a crossing of forearms. This he says will make a bike of my age "stop-start"
Was this the problem?had I accidentally put bio-ethanol fuel in my tank?
We limped on to the next petrol station and topped up a couple of litres of SP98. Has it helped? I don't know. We've stopped for lunch to replenish our energy and allow me to calm down a little.
We need to press on again in a while - fingers crossed