Leaderboard

Looks like it eh. And they didn't even have lifts. Orford Castle is a castle in Orford in the English county of Suffolk, 12 miles (19 km) northeast of Ipswich, with views over Orford Ness. It was built between 1165 and 1173 by Henry II of England to consolidate royal power in the region. The well-preserved keep, described by historian R. Allen Brown as "one of the most remarkable keeps in England", is of a unique design and probably based on Byzantine architecture. The keep stands within the earth-bank remains of the castle's outer fortifications.

This is the van I drive in work, absolutely lovely drive

Last weekend we decided to take the Himalayans for a ride to a local lake we enjoy. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a nice ride through the forest with a short stop at the lake and then home. That was the plan, Plan A we will call it! The riding was really dusty. After the heat wave we had the back roads were extra dry and loose, a bit tricky to ride on, but still fun. We made it to the lake and it was a splendid day. The bikes were running great. Not too hot yet, still early in the day and no one was around. The lake looked so nice and it was really warm. After a nice break we decided to head home. Got all ready, turned the key, dash lights on.....hit the go button and POOFF!! DEAD, nothing....NO GO So the jackets and helmets came off and we proceeded to try and find the problem. We did all the usual stuff, checked all we could check and still found nothing. Bagheera was dead. The day was getting on and we needed to get home for our dog, so Plan B started. Let's try to tow the bike home. Well that didn't last long, the other Himalayan just didn't have enough power for the loose gravel hills we had to go up. I had never towed a bike with another bike, so it was a good learning experience at least. .....so onto Plan C One person goes home and brings back the 4Runner and we try and stuff Bagheera into the back somehow. Sure, no problem, only 450lbs to lift up and stuff in..... So my partner went home and I waited with Bagheera, removing as many extra parts as I could, to help with the stuffing into the 4Runner. After some time, my knight in a dusty 4Runner appeared to save the day. It was then that I had a feeling that my Gazoo (the 4Runner) would never be the same after that day. But he did look good in rescue mode. Ok, now to make this work. Sure it will fit! We removed the gas from Bagheera and got into a spot where we didn't have to lift too far. We got out our awesome MAXTRAX MKII Recovery Boards, which I have been wanting to use and proceeded to lift and push.... It was hard because we needed the handle bars to lift the bike, but he wouldn't fit in with them on........we also needed to lift him up and over the rear area, how the hell will this work?.......I was getting hot and grumpy by this point. Then the motorcycle spirits came to our aid. After a few people passing, who were nice and all, but would not be useful in these circumstances, we had just the right guy come by. He was an old long hair, with a big old pickup and two dogs. After shaking his head at our idea and smiling to himself, he was happy to help. Eventually the three of us managed to stuff Bagheera into the 4Runner. Damaging who knows what, but at that point I didn't care. Of course we could not close the rear hatch and with the dusty roads, we all looked like we had been caught in a sandstorm when we got home. Everyone was hot, dusty and tired now. The 4Runner was a total mess, layers of dust, dents in things, the rear bumper for one. The floor over the back seats had some holes in them as well. Which is all good, I have been wanting to rip the back seats out for awhile now. Then build in some storage for camping and 4x4 travels. Who needs back seats....lol Bagheera had a few scratches from the drive and his shifter was totally bent in, but I should have replaced it the first time it bent after a fall..... At this time Bagheera's electrical gremlins have yet to be found. I have a few ideas, but nothing conclusive. All part of the adventure with Bagheera, the cursed Himalayan......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orford_Castle to see inside

Can we keep insults directed solely at the member.......it's not the done thing to involve family members!

As I had put my tyres on yesterday, today was a test ride to make sure my wheel weren't going to fall off, nor the tyres deflate. I was going to take a ride to Canterbury, never been there, my licence has, some nonsense about not being allowed to cross double white lines, but I haven't. The weather report (lying fuckers) suggested that it was going to rain in Kent, so instead I decided to take a look at a bit of Suffolk coast. The pictures below, in no particular order are, Bawdsey Beach, then the old WW2 defences at Bawdsey Hall, plus the Napoleonic era defences at the same place. I thought there was only a single Martello tower, but walking back to my bike I saw what appeared to be two more across the fields. Finally Orford Castle. As I was approaching Bawdsey, the first thing I saw was what appeared to be yachts sailing across a field.

Indian fusion shepherds pie, by Sofia

Mind you @xtreme we threatened one of ours with statuary sick pay on the third go when he just fancied a bit of time off (he’s a terrible liar) Strangely his girlfriend suddenly became Covid free, shame she would have been of great medical interest having it for a third time!

Statuary sick pay is eventually available and worth bugger all. This is why theres been resistance to testing, people simply cant afford to be off work.

Waah? That really sucks. Isolation rules dont change til the 16th August. My friends son went to a house in Devon along with several others to have a big party to celebrate the end of their courses over the weekend. One of them brought Covid along so they were all told to stay there and isolate. Six days in her son got bored, decided he didnt have Covid and without warning just appeared at home, yep you can guess the rest

Here we go again: "By now, if you haven’t been vaccinated for Covid, then you know that the vaccine is much more dangerous than the virus. In fact, if you know anything about anything they put in vaccines today, then you know that Covid was just an excuse for ushering in a depopulation scheme that’s got 150 million people set up like bowling pins, getting ready for the big knockdown.”

Jealous much now, should have definitely sent a good portion my way I'd have hoovered it up it seconds

I got some karma thrown at me today after trying to wind you up about us having better weather here i decided to go out on the bike for a few solitary hours this afternoon and at my furthest point from home the heavens opened and i got drenched because i was dressed for the "good weather " and while out i stopped to talk (keeping a good distance) to someone i came up behind tip toeing along the trail on a triumph tiger 800 and his name turned out to be Fred Jones which we both had a chuckle about

There was a similar pair down our way when i was in my early teens, me and a mate used to be stalking in the woods shooting at anything that did or didn't move and would often bump into this guy practicing martial arts of some form on a tree, Dai Kung we called him he had twin brother that done the same, when they were together they were called the kungs

I mentioned earlier in this thread about the yard foreman, a young bloke called Tony. As stated, he was all good looks and muscles and he liked the ladies. Our yard was squeezed between the river and a load of flats and maisonettes in Barking called The Gascoigne Estate. Named after the Gascoignes who had been the big cheeses and land owners for hundreds of years. A few old fogies on here will know one of the family as he used to host University Challenge. I was mooching about the yard one day and happened to look out of the gate. I was used to seeing odd people wandering about, plus we were in a road with various types of yard all down the same side as the river which meant we had some strange people working in them. On this day I looked and saw a man wearing a white Judo suit. He was on the little green shown on the right below with the big tree. He was doing all the harry karry stuff, kicks, chops, all directed at the tree shown. Basically he was being a bit of a knob. I could also see Tony, flying about in a fork lift. I called out to him and he roared up and came to a skidding halt. 'Wassup Yen?' he was the one who christened me with that name, it developed out of shouting Ian in a noisy yard. 'There's a bloke outside, says you have been messing with his woman, he is waiting for you!' Tony looked out the gates and there is this twat punching imaginary baddies and kicking invisible things above his head, he's really going for it now. To give Tony his due, he jumped out of the fork lift and was on his way out to the bloke before I managed to stop him. Tony got me back later that day, he had me sitting on the top rails of a covered articulated lorry to help pull the sheet over. He told me to sit still on the rail whilst they moved the lorry up a few yards so they could line up the next load from the road side. What I didn't know and he did was that there was a large tree branch behind me. As the lorry backed up I was pushed off the rail and down into the skips of swarf. I lay just inside the skip covered in small pieces of metal and cutting oil. A blonde head appeared over the edge and a finger was wagged in my direction as he told me not to ever try and get one over on him again.

Finally - a yacht that I can afford....

3 days of hardcore rugged individualism coming your way ….

Fat bloke from Telford.......Mawsleys doppelganger.

If the bloke you met was a fucking lunatic then it was Mawsley!

Weeping rocker cover after 2k miles isn’t good. I will stick with my 96ci , never misses a beat even when I did 4600 miles in 8 days.

I think I met him (maybe wrong) on one of the other forums rides, If it was him, he seemed quite level headed........if it was him. If it was not him, then he,s a fruit loop.

He was posting like hell.....now nothing. But then.....he is batshit crazy!

I have been repairing a bike today.........I need some new parts for it.

Flounced you reckon @XTreme., he has got form for it .

That length of time he should be seeing you right under the radar!

Going into my 16th year i started with the boss but got no money in the company and don't want it any other way so i'm in a good position unless i do a serious fuck up i'll be one of the last to go

Trouble is there's lots of work for electricians at the moment the 6 we made redundant in February were all working within 2 weeks so yes they can walk straight into another job so the threat of losing their job isn't a threat to them but they wont know how good they have it now until they move on which to be honest i hope some do move on it will make my job so much easier

Biggest problem is people just take the piss we have boys taking days off because they don't feel like coming in or have had a weekend on the piss, can you imagine what they would be like if they got paid sick leave. My wife worked for a company that had paid sick leave and the workforce there took the 6 weeks full sick pay as part of their annual holidays. I've witnessed the piss taking and laziness all my working life if i ever owned my own company i would be the only one employed because i'm the only one i can rely on

Different era, very few employers feel any responsibility towards their employees. Your just a unit, as soon as your benefit cost ratio swings the wrong way the faulty ones are ejected. One of the joys of zero hours contracts and a shift in societal norms many moons ago. Sad

I've worked almost everyday since the age of 16 and not one of the company's i worked for paid sick pay, as for isolating the company couldn't afford to pay for everyone who's isolated since covid started we're not in a very good position at the moment and i'm thankful that i'm still employed

Surely employers have some duty of care in this though?

I'm off for 10 days now because the lads covid test came back positive I've also had one today and waiting for the results. I cant think where he would have got it when we were away last week as we had masks on and was socially distancing from others when we went out, but he did say he was out on the piss with his mates until 6am a week ago Saturday, So his night out with his mates has cost me a weeks wages which i'm a bit pissed off about

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/10lb-sledge-hammer-fibreglass-handle/

I was able to get out, and trim the yards grass...

It was absolutely delicious!! The best thing @Pedrohas ever cooked that I have eaten. Should open restaurant!

I think i'd enjoy trawling the shallows of a beach in this a couple of quid more than i got though

Quick six run for your dissecting tools, there might be a chance of landing a hook

It looks lovely there I think he did not want to do a @boboneleg and strip off

That's a idea @Six30......take the Suzuki beach racing at Mablethorpe in the winter!.

A nice van.......it was Ford's 3rd best seller the other year!. It's not a intimidating van for car driver to use......with it not being that large.

Peak District , off out for a few hours before footy

Left Faro not having a clue where I would go next, half an hour into the ride I stopped for a while, having to make a couple of calls and send some emails, my office for my morning stuff, right after the twistiest nicest part of the N2 in southern Portugal. All you need is decent coverage and a laptop that doesn't crap out from all the vibration on the bike, my choice would have been for a cafe as I was a little needy of a coffee, but all my options so far had a few people around and I am trying to stay out of people's way. Can't really stand sitting in a cafe wearing a mask so I don't. I felt like riding back to the Alentejo, but temperatures are supposed to go into unpleasant levels, and I had just come from there, so instead headed west into the Atlantic, but via mountains and hills, a Algarve most tourists never see. I rode a mix of nice smooth roads you would be happy to take a fast sports bike on, mountain roads less smooth and more twisty, good gravel roads, and less good gravel roads Onto dirt: Someone must have been shot to death here, place looked grim with a british plated transit van half disassembled, I didn't stick around. The nice dirt road turned into a sort of dirt highway you could drive two TIR trailers side by side, some corrugations also made it unpleasant, didn't take pictures of that ugliness, and it was proper hot there too so didn't feel like stopping allowing my own dust to catch up. Then some nice enough roads through orange orchards, also no pictures, but then a nice dirt road near the Funcho dam. By 14:30 I was a bit hungry, climbed the Monchique serra, which I've posted about before, and had a cheese and tomato sandwich there Then, because the guy took forever to put a few slices of tomato and cheese inside some bread, and I didn't know where to go next, I took forever to leave. Decided on going to spend the night in a hotel I have wanted to stay in ever since the first time I visited Sagres as it overlooks the Sagres point from a similarly tall (50 meters) cliff. It's expensive but what the hell. Made quite good progress and enjoyed the bumpy roads coming here, brief stop by the Cape Saint Vincent lighthouse, my favourite building in Portugal: Didn´t hang around much as I really felt like a swim, plus I'll stop by a little tomorrow before going: The room is a disappointment, but the view as I'm posting this right now: Going for a walk on a cliffside, and dinner in a bit...

Great photos again Pedro, this is stunning............

Woke up with dawn, enjoying a great light on sunrise, my phone doesn't seem to capture these moments, though. And after a while, it turned into a beautiful day Stopped by the fortress which is the very tip of Sagres, to have a walk around and see if I could see all the way to Brazil, but it was still closed and I didn't feel like waiting around Fueled up, and after a couple of kms stopped again at the lighthouse to see if I could have a coffee inside, also closed! There were a couple of italian bikes there, owners were very exuberant but we only said hello from a distance, I think neither of us felt like wearing a mask so we just said hello from a safe distance. In the next picture, you see a british family. The guy was making a right show of screaming at his terrified wife and daughter to climb down to the very edge of a cliff in order for him to take a selfie with them. Poor family was so scared but he did get his picture. They had a rental van... everyone could tell it was theirs because the screaming never really stopped even when they got into it From there, I rode a couple of dirt roads to my favourite location in the area, it's been shown before in previous reports as it's a special location to me, so here it goes again If you look closely on the picture above, there's someone flying a para glider from the second rock formation, I waited a while but he didn't venture higher or onto the sea. I spent a while there, thinking about stuff. And taking a picture or two of the bike After a while, headed north on the N120, very typical of this area There are some corners, and it's a weird road because you can cruise along at whatever speed in 6th and then all of a sudden there's 3km of very tight corners, I like it but didn't stop for corner pictures Stopped at Cabo Sardão (lizard cape), not as imposing as the previous ones but the ocean was really pretty today and I love a good lighthouse There's quite a big cave down there Rode off via a series of short dirt roads, here's one that had a little sand, not what I prefer in my fuelled up bike with road tires Stopped in Porto Novo for lunch, in a lovely place with a great view and ocean breeze. The local typical fried cuttlefish were great. Rode on, and stopped by one of the biggest beaches in Portugal, south of Comporta (50kms long) , I stopped to make a call, and prepare myself as I know that as soon as I rode away from the ocean it'd start to really heat up and I didn't feel like having to stop and talk on all the heat. It was just a perfect day for going to this beach, no people, perfect temperature, beautiful water... After Sines, heading in it quickly got hot, and I stopped yet again to open the vents on the jacket, and a wee. It was about 33 or 35º by now By Grandola I took my last foto of the dashboard showing 38,5º ambient temperature, before I put my phone away as it was boiling. It eventually got to 40º on the motorway. After temperatures got that high the smaller roads were about to get boring too, so I just got on the motorway for an hour, or what felt like an hour, and headed to Ericeira to meet Sofia for dinner, passing the Tejo river over Portugal'l longest bridge at 11km I rode all the way at 90kmh and standing up most of the time. The temperature dropping to 33º over the river felt like air conditioning Made it to Ericeira for a very cool 25º again next to the ocean. A great day on the bike again, which is now proper dusty.

That's what that bird said to me in 72 when she saw my foreskin!

Caught this blood moon shot over the Wirral. Andy got better pucs on his fancy Samsung.