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Pish - been there three separate occasions over the years -and the Yeomen are pretty funny. It's a good tour though. I even got to stand on some old dude's wall on one trip to the UK...

Here you go, 2013 . My mate Steve with his KTM and my old DR350. This part of the wall is levelled, you can see a raised section in the background. I never use to believe peeps when they used to say that you can ride on part of Hadrian's wall but there it is.

PAL 643M. Oldest photo I have of my previous bikes.

Shells on the beach at low tide.

I've actually ridden along Hadrian's Wall, there's a section where it's just slightly raised above the ground and it's a byway so it can be ridden on. I'll have to try and find the photos.

In my early days at the council there was a legendary character, known to most people as Grouty, or Len of Bow. He worked at that time for our Highways Construction team, but spent most of his time either in other offices giving his opinions which were always right and varied, he thought he knew everything about every subject. He also spent a lot of time doing his own private work. He was our union shop steward as well, which is probably why he got away with so much. In those early years when I was still a trainee he would sometime be lent me to help him, supposedly carrying out levelling surveys. Usually I would be left guarding the surveying equipment whilst he nipped off for a few minutes, these minutes usually ended up being a few hours. He had a van so awful looking that once he went away on a foreign holiday and the council towed it away as an abandoned vehicle and crushed it. BUT it did have the advantage that he would just pull up and not bother locking it or even winding the windows up on a hot day. He was married to a Finnish girl at that time, nice lady met her all the times we had to call home on the way to a site so he could collect or drop off things to do with his private work. After a few years he moved, or was pushed to various other departments. He spent a while in our Structures team and so took his turn doing tunnel and bridge inspections. Seeing an overtime opportunity followed by a day off, he volunteered for the unloved night time tunnel inspections around the Brick Lane and Petticoat Lane areas. He would open them up so that people like BT or Gas board could get down to their plant, then check they were undamaged and lock them back up in the wee small hours. He did this for quite a few months. Now these areas are where Jack the Ripper did his work lowering the prostitute numbers back in 1888 and although he is long gone, the ladies of the night still thrive. The first week or so, they would walk up to him sitting in his car waiting for BT and ask if he wanted female company. He would gently explain he was only there to do work and tell them what he was doing. By week 3 he was on first name terms with them and they with him, they even got him coffees and he got them some in return. All was well until his wife suggested she could come to work with him one evening as she hardly saw him these days. He spent so long talking her out of it that she sulked for ages. But as he told me, what if she had come along and a procession of prostitutes had walked past, all gaily greeting him by name and asking him if he wanted his usual yet (coffee). Many years later he went a step too far workwise with something and got suspended. He was escorted from the building and the contents of his desk were seized to check for financial irregularities. They had no chance, I'd seen his desk, he couldn't find stuff he knew was there, they had no chance. He ended up off work on full pay whilst the investigation went on. This at a time when he was doing up a house from a ruin as well, they couldn't have timed it better! He got his own back against the man who had him suspended. He was in our Drainage section when it got taken over by Thames Water and they took most of the staff over as well. Now he didn't work for us he could stand for councillor, representing the Labour party. He won as well. He was doing that for 4 years, he made that man's life a misery until he finally left, became chief exec at some coastal authority I think. He got the sack from Thames Water in the end, kept forgetting to turn up for work I heard. Grouty is still about, now he works for himself lending his huge knowledge to local developers. He's on wife number 3 or 4 and child number 8 I think. I have to go to meetings with developers about works he is involved with and he is banned from them because he has put formal complaints in about almost everyone I work with. I'm alright though, I think he likes me. Historical note. I did hear that his father took the rap for a certain crime family's misdemeanour in the 60s as a favour (See Tom Hardy's film list for the family name) and got given a pub as a reward. His father went to prison for their crime and his mother moved another bloke in to the pub and told him she never wanted to see him again. His father hanged himself in prison. I've been in the pub and it has a very strange extra bit of triangular wall in the kitchen that shouldn't be there, I am sure there is someone walled up behind it. It mostly catered for market workers having their lunch at 2am, but is now a trendy wine bar.

Here you go.

Sounds like an advert for feminine hygene products.

I want to go and look round HMS Belfast at some point. Never been on that at all. I'll speak to my mate at work and get another tour of the underground communications tunnel near Aldgate and Petticoat Lane, this time with a camera. The Aldgate tunnel is Victorian and contains two giant gas pipes that you walk between with smaller pipes above. It is under the centre of the road and every side street has a street nameplate (often the street above has been renamed since) and matching side tunnel. To get into the side tunnels you have to go between the pipes which are like a giant old fashioned mangle. It has a dirt floor except for a narrow line of slabs with rat holes at the sides. The Petticoat Lane tunnel crosses a council boundary, so we followed it along to a locked door with City of London written on it. Just thought of a story to do with that, so will pop to that thread.

No thanks I see enough of him don’t want him on film as well, just imagine a fucking turtle with two hearing aids walking upright with a mouth the size of the Grand canyon and you won’t be far off the mark.

Don’t need to go anywhere, the fat bastard is out there now with his fucking HUGE gob shouting and bawling.

Imagine if The Leg had fallen off? You could have been in England and The Leg could have been in Scotland! It don't bear thinking about!

You hooligan.

I sent them an e-mail once axing when they will name a storm Tym, so far they are ignoring me.

They've got it all wrong giving that storm a French name, the French usually run away at great speed at any hint of trouble.

That's only the English Yen! Us lot just play rugby, go down the pit, and shag sheep. Not necessarily in that order though. Seen this @Tym, @Earache, @alfalfa, @DesmoDog

I hope so, that's the only reason I took photos. As you will know Pete, all Brits live in either a castle or at the very least a house no younger than 300 years old and with a ghost in residence. We all sweep chimneys for a living and speak with unconvincing cockney accents most of the week except on Thursdays when we adopt a cut glass accent and wear a deer stalker and cape whilst assisting Scotland Yard in unravelling baffling crimes. We thrive on a diet of fish and chips during the week and grouse at weekends.

As I said earlier, rode 50 miles to my friends' house, parked up in their back garden then 9 of us, including 3 children got on the bus, then the train and entered The Tower dead on 10am as per our timed Covid style tickets. We walked in as one of the Yeoman of the Guard ( a Beefeater) was doing his walk and talk tour so we joined on to that for a few locations then split up and wandered round individually. If you want a laugh, the youtube video gives you an idea of how good the Yeoman warders are, I think they choose only natural comedians or more likely, to have got that far in the armed forces before being chosen you develop a sense of humour. Pictures below, it's a big place in a small area. All pictures, apart from the St Katherine's dock ones, are taken inside the fortress. Some pictures show where the staff and their children live, what a strange life that must be.

I kind of lost the plot and ended up putting a lot more pictures than I thought ... Some of you, being bikers, may have heard of Faro before, the FaroMC organizes one of Europes' biggest rallies usually during June I think, already in its 27th edition, 2020 and 2021 were the first years it didn't happen since the early 80s. It is a huge club and has a big impact on the town itself, and the way bikes are used and treated there. Faro is not very much a tourist city like others in the Algarve are, you have no big touristy hotels, no resorts, and the beach is not located within easy reach of the town center but instead on a strip of land 10km drive away. It is very unique, and old school portuguese. Being stuck with no bike I had no ease of parking so ended up walking a lot more than usual, which I actually appreciated. Having nothing really to do I took long walks with stops for swims. The pin on the left with "Ilha de Faro" is the only access land access to the beach, and what I'll be showing you, that and the beach until "Praia da Barrinha" The bridge to the "island" only has one alternated lane, which means it's a bitch to get on if you're driving a cage. No such problems for bikes as shown below: The nature reserve itself, between the beach and the main town is a beautiful place to visit Harleys are popular here, more so than anywhere else in Portugal, being used in daily life more than pampered, but even most other bikes are more often characterful and used, some with quite the patina from the sun and salty winds. Some poor souls wasting their filtering powers: Even spotted Pete's bike, complete with sidestand over lean, and all the boxes needed for the family's beach essentials ... Proper private parking place for this guy next to his restaurant, no scorching bike! Onto our tour around that strip on land called Ilha de Faro, you access through the bridge, here with no traffic as it's older and I was on the bike: it used to be mainly fishermen's houses, now there are plenty of nicer fixed up weekend homes, a few restaurants and bars, and a couple of hostels, but it retained most of it's charm. The main street already away from the fuss and into mostly small homes: In a few places you have houses that are 20 meters away from the water inland, and 100 meters away from the beach on the other side And the narrow accesses between houses when there are two or three rows of homes between the street and the beach Here I'm standing on the beach, you get three rows of houses, the street, one row of houses, and then water on the other side some are quite small and not exactly luxurious, in the winter they're not really comfortable but what a view and beach access: If you continue until the end of the street, you'll find my preferred parking place when on a motorcycle, already getting to the sand away from the crowd The creaky boardwalk into the beach is the only access to the fishermen homes out in the dunes, the sign says no motorcycles except for residents Their roadways for a few meters: Now, onto the beach life, obviously the closer you are to the access bridge and main parking areas, the more crowded it is. It is very much a family oriented beach, similar in beach life to the north of portugal, grandparents taking their small grandkids for the morning while parents are at work, that sort of thing. It perfectly mixes with tourists from all over. I feel like a perv taking pictures of people on the beach, so try to avoid it more so when there are hot chicks in them or topless women. Teenagers waiting for the adrenalin boat ride being towed on flotation devices, I would say there's a 25% change of rope burn, and it properly stings in the salty water too I am not a big fan of quads, but they do serve a purpose, and there are worse jobs to have than patrol the sand every hour or so On windy afternoons, kitesurfers, as soon as you see the kites in the distance, you already know there's going to be sand blowing everywhere. The busy parts of the beach have lifeguards. If you're going to drown, better do it very loudly or I think you won't get their attention away from tinder Early morning crowd, families about to start getting pestered with crowds of younger people who don't make it to the beach before 10AM There is a big child shelter in Faro, to harbor kids who are mainly taken away from dangerous and/or abusive situations. They have facilities here that I suppose are used as a holiday camp for the summertime, here they are packing up at the end of a beach afternoon Group of friends hanging out after sunset, eating pizza and drinking beer, there are worse things to do. Fishing boats, quite close to the sand this year Tourists at the end of day On some days, the sky color is amazing and a darker blue than I've seen anywhere. Beach scene, 6PM on quite a warm day. There's a pastry that for whatever reason is very popular in the beach, and in most parts of Portugal you get people walking the beach selling them. It's origins are German, it's the Berliner. In Germany it's usually filled with fruit jelly and only partly so as the flavors are quite strong, in Portugal it's more like a custard sandwich with plenty of filling, like so: It's very sugary on the outside and very sweet, but when you're all salty from the ocean it hits the spot for most people. I make an effort to avoid them very much ... Here you have the "Bolas de Berlim" guy being called over by a family, it's not an easy job walking the soft sand carrying those cases Faro sometimes is a little windy in the afternoon, and when that happens the wind usually dies down before sunset, you get the feeling it's getting warmer as the sun is setting, these nights in the Algarve with just a hint of a breeze and 25º outside are magical, I went on a walk at the end of the afternoon up until night time, sunset was at about 20:30. This is one of the reasons restaurants are open until very late and get clients arriving at 10 or 11pm. Faro in the distance, on the other side of the water with an ultra low tide Earlier that day I had a nice swim in the same spot but with a bigger tide Walking at night and getting away from the shore, better watch where you step Literally the end of the beach, you can walk with water waist or chest high to the other side for a couple of hours before the tide rises back up. There was a forest fire that blew a smoke cloud over the ocean and created this light when the sun started to drop behind it and then set behind the Atlantic, quite an end to the day.

There are still characters about, there are certainly many on here, the motorcycling fraternity is by it's very nature full of contrary, stubborn and colourful people. When I left the structures department for a new job in a devolved council I was asked if I would still work weekends for Structures as they had lots of drawing work and very few draftsmen. Being low paid, I jumped at the chance. There was a bit of a row with my new employer over it, but the head of Structures sweet talked him and it was allowed. Time and half on Saturdays, double time on Sundays, happy days. My first weekend working session I met my Structures replacement for the first time, a young Arab looking lad called Abed. He was later to be called Rabid Abed or sometimes Mr Bean. The last nick name was because he owned an Austin Mini. He was not the full shilling. He was a Rotring short of a full pen set! He apparently kept a spare engine in his front room for the Mini just in case! At this first meeting we were introduced by the manager and then left to start work. Abed asked me if I had a degree and when I said no he never spoke to me again, just blanked me from that point on. I didn't care, I just put my Walkman headphones on and wacked up the volume to Nirvana and ignored him. Years later they recombined the council and cutbacks in staff were made. Rabid Abed by this time had upset a lot of people with his strange behaviour and loud rages, so he was made redundant and put on the list where they would try to place him in a different job if possible. When I heard they were interviewing him for a job where I was based I'm afraid I might have put in a bad word or three for him. Interviews were carried out in a small narrow office. One of the people doing the interview had strange ideas. He put some maps and other posters up on the wall upside down to see if anyone commented. No one said a word apparently. Last one in was Rabid Abed, I think they were looking forward to him after my comments. I needn't have worried about them giving him a job. The first thing he did was ask if he could move his chair a bit, then turned it 90 degrees and sat with the side of his head to them through the interview. I don't mean he twisted his neck to look at them, I mean he never looked at them at all and they spoke to his left ear throughout. The last I heard they put him on a front desk dealing with the public. That only lasted a day or so, he went off on one and he ended up being made properly redundant.

When I did my apprenticeship and worked in the factory there were some real characters around, but where have they gone? I guess that some of the stuff we used to do or have done to us would get people sacked these days.

My third bike.......must have been around 1977.

I went there a number of years back with a Canadian colleague who stopped over in London for the weekend on his way to Germany. It's definitely very interesting, a good day out.

What a coincidence this turned up today on FB.......though I would say the bird needs to he holding onto you!

If they was to shoot them all dead that’ll be less unvaccinated people to spread it.

Looks more like @Pedro's food to me!

Fecking a the French will never go away. Henri went west, stalled now is going back over a second time this is the eye still nice and clear, not so round, Connecticut fucked the round part up.

I live in a new build, it is barely 200 years old.

I rode a new one recently that belongs to a friend, hell of a machine and designed to be modified, it is one of the few jap bikes that could tempt me.

I reckon I was on my second Suzuki Hayabusa 17 years ago. Awesome bit of kit and I’d have another in a heartbeat This is me on a track day at Donnington Park, surrounded by proper track bikes and I didn’t give a shit………my grin was wider than the Atlantic Ocean. ‘Kin ‘ell, that was faaaaaaast

You tend to find that in these small villages, in particular. There is a deep reverence given by the locals to these places. There is always a visitors book and reading the entries is really quite illuminating. "Thank you for our freedom." is a very common comment. What happened at the Barn was almost completely forgotten, it was the local mayor who decided this couldn't be allowed to happen and the memorial is entirely down to him. The same goes for the much smaller burial sites, a corner maybe of a village cemetery with just a few, maybe just one grave. Not ignored. They are never ignored. The locals still care for them. In between the normal 11/11 day of special recognition.

Amongst the photos you will see a pimped cannon (for Tym), a three barrelled breach loading cannon, strangely square in form (for Tym) and a broken chair which is a result of a German spy being executed by firing squad in 1941. Apparently due to the low height of the bullet catcher, which I hope is a device and not a tradesman, he needed to be sitting down to be shot. In the dock pics you will see some of the Queen's jubilee barge, I couldn't get far enough away to get it all in. Lots of gold leaf, can't believe no one has pinched it.

Blue Moon this weekend! This is her setting this moaning. The clouds are tropical from Henri .

It's a shame that Covid-19 isn't weeding these fuckers out!

Now you're talking Yen! Underground tunnels and rats.......get in there my man!

Agreed. Definitely touristy but well worth the time it takes to tour it.

That would be @Tym's dream job!

Well he is a cunt.

That pic would get you some TOTY votes for sure Ray!

People think my house was built in the 1700's and has lead paint issues. Turns out its a kit house built in 1987 to look like a house from the 1700's, and is perfect reproduction down to the H&L door hinges butt no lead paint to bad eh?

Brilliant shots Yen........the Yanks will jump at this shit!

Please note @Tym This is proof for women on the beach. Thought the same. Excellent that, beautiful place.

Back seats are for birds! There were times years ago that I had to give a lift to a mate but I fucking hated it. I used to tell them......sit right back, keep your feet on the pegs, and don't fucking touch me. With a bird it was sit forward, and hold onto me if you need to. If they weren't up close and holding on then it required some sharp braking so they'd rub their tits in your back! Simple pleasures back then!

Depends on the rider. I had a couple of mates who I completely trusted and went pillion on their bikes many times quite happily. But then I had another mate who was nearly blind in one eye. He should have worn his glasses when riding, but he couldn't get them on with his lid on. So, his 3D vision was a bit impaired and, coupled with his failure to take into account the extra weight on the bike when taking a pillion, we ended up overshooting several junctions. How we didn't get killed I don't know, but I only went pillion with him the once!

Last one gone.