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I saw a Pete. Where? There On the stair! Where on the stair? Right there...... A little Pete with clogs on, well I declare, going clip clippity clop on the stairs. Right there.

The Parisien police comissioner in charge of Road Safety just crashed his car... into an ambulance on call... injured a doctor on board and wrote off his unmarked police car and an ambulance. He was using his 2 tone and blue lights and speeding because wait for it... He was Late for a meeting! There will obviously be an investigation by the STJA ( service for Judicial Treatement of traffic accidents) a specific parisien brigade directed by... wait for it... The police comissioner for road safety. no it's not a joke, no it's not funny, you couldn't make it up if you tried but it's proof that people are the same the world over, give 'em a uniform and tell them they'e special and they take liberties and think they're immune to the law.

i might be able to help , any pics of your mum ?

I remember riding my bike fully loaded with camping gear and the wife along one of the dykes back in the early 90's in the most torrential rain i have ever ridden in with lightening striking the ground around me i ended up taking shelter under a bridge for a few hours just the kind of riding weather Pete loves

Giver her my number, i giver a weeknd special for only $4500 in Bitcoin.

I've e-mailed Dutch Immigration to clarify a few points......just got to wait for a reply. I posed a few questions on an Expats in NL FB group with a link to the Immigration criteria on the Dutch government page. And the stupid Admin cunt refused to publish it cos it contained a link.....despite the fact that other people have posted links! WTF? So I deleted the link and waiting to see if the fucking dickhead allows it now. In the meantime I thought who can I get more background from? The answer was obvious.....Bikers! So I joined a Dutch Expat group for motorcyclists, and they've been really helpful in terms of info about tax, insurance, and re-registering vehicles. Pretty mixed bunch.....Brits, Italians, Portuguese, Germans, French etc. And very different to Expats here......the majority of them are younger and moved to NL for work, or relationships etc. After all, nobody goes there to retire. Next step while I wait to hear from Immigration is to find horse people......cos there's no way we're leaving our horses behind. Thinking back......I remember a thread on MB that ran for some months in 2005 following my steps to get here. Of course it's bureaucratically much more difficult this time round!

Your zoom sucks!

Tenby at Sunrise this morning

You’re right @yen_powell.... I’ll go for this.......

what about Bingo..

And you say your not a fan of the car

So your son lives in the bit with the shittiest weather? Nice. Did you tell immigration that you are ginger?

If you're bored and cold in the depths of winter, you can watch me talk about KLXs And how that all translated on the trails (high idle ftw)

I found our old house! https://www.google.com/maps/place/Meester+Th.+Heemskerklaan+9,+3818+KJ+Amersfoort,+Netherlands/@52.1498059,5.3546974,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x47c643ff2dfd4cc3:0x767987b06583f028!8m2!3d52.1498026!4d5.3568861

Another fussy fucker

no , the old ladies .

Who are Pete’s ‘haters’ , I can’t think of any

he's an amateur , talking shit on mooeybook to women he'll never meet ... this happens to me every time i go out ...

Gemma has now sent me best wishes for Valentines Day Tym? Get back on there and sort this shit out FFS!

I'm running Michelin Enduro Medium for the first time on the rear of my XTrainer bloody good all round tyre just bought a new front ready for when the stock tyre wears out

A lot higher.......but once you get out in the rural places (which is what we want) they're a bit more realistic. I'm putting out feelers everywhere at the moment on many different aspects so just waiting to get info back.

I'm fine......it's the wife that's struggling with her osteoarthritis. But we do have to consider what would happen if something happened to me! She couldn't be stuck here on her own. If it was just me left there wouldn't be an issue......I'm the one who gets all the important stuff done as I have the language and the connections. We're not going to buy another house so we'd rent anyway. Not sure when, or even if, we'd put the house up for sale. May well just keep it here (at least initially).......our Spanish neighbours can keep an eye on it for us. Thing is, we have no mortgage so it's not a financial drain in any way.

When you recognise crumbliness is upon you being near family is priceless. But Im concerned you'll find it too cold and expensive. Could you rent there for a year or so without selling up your place in Spain until you're certain? You obviously did a good job with your kids if they want to have you around, hats off n all that My own dear mother has just realised frailty is on her and now keeps coming down. She left nearly 30 years ago and has previously shown no interest in her children or grandchildren. She got married 2018 and didn't even tell us because apparently "its none of our business" He then carked it in 2019 and in the last 6 months she keeps turning up down here will waggling. She is very wealthy and I find it all very distasteful. TBH it pisses me off that after fucking up the first part of my life she arrogantly assumes she can walk back in and have me look after her. Im not doing it, I refuse to have her screwing up the last part of my life too so Ive told her I won't be about cos I'm going to travel and will be based in Spain for the start. She said "But who's going to look after me?" I shrugged. So my plan is to just avoid her and say Im in Spain whether I am or not. Im not sure if Im ok with lying but I reckon its alright if its to protect myself? I told her outright I wouldn't be around and if she ends up with dementia like her mother did (she is showing the early signs) she might want to pick out where she wants to go now while she has her marbles. I know this sounds harsh but I can't handle her lies and manipulation, it messes with my head. What do you reckon?

I don´t know in what kind of place you'll live, but horse riding in very popular and a lot more democratic there, if you end up somewhere outside a main city they'll probably be a lot happier with the green grass there than where you live.

about it still being winter it was almost like a spring afternoon today, 13 deg c, clear skies...loverly, so I went riding again. Obviously within about half an hour of leaving home the skies began to cloud over and the wind picked up but it remained warm and I probably could have done without the thermal liners. 2 1/2 hours riding, south ish then west ish then North-east ish. think I found where the local biker gang hang out This forest road was open and looked inviting, if steep to begin with, but as I took the photo my brain (or what little there is left of it) reminded my that a gated forest road, supposed to be reserved for permit holders, on a Sunday, during hunting season was probably not the best idea I'd ever had... so I bottled it and went back to the public roads. can't decide whether the road or the rail way is more minor... Then I thought of you lot and remembered a tradition that has been lost

move close to a hospital fuck it, cut out the middle man , just move as near as you can to a graveyard.

I reckon Pete needs to give a go just to satisfy his other halves desire to be near family further down the line. Its better to make these moves before it becomes a necessity because when people leave making the move until they have to cos of frailty or ill health they don't have the energy to get to know the area, make friends, put down roots. Ive seen it many times- old, isolated and depressed because the only person they know is their child. Thats no good for anyone and the parent can feel like a burden. I don't see Pete being the sort of person that would be able to wear that so if they go now they'll be time to build their own lives and if its not for them there's nothing to stop them moving somewhere else. There's my two penneth worth. And please for fecks sake move closish to a hospital with good public transport links cos you spend waaaay too long driving back n forth!

Best start reading up on dehumidifiers then

Seeing as today is 14th Feb

Thing is......you want to live every day! But when every day is the same, and you just keep reliving the same day over and over again it gets too much. And I think we've reached that point after nearly 17 years here!

its 80-90% humidity year round. Might not be great for the ol' arthritis. But I suppose you got to suck it and see.

Did i studder or skip a letter? Fuck Facebutt.

29 grand you can leave that one where it is

You and the wife were riding a Dyke?

Damn that one slipped through the net

Perhaps he'll take up camping too

Good luck. Hope its an adventure. Make sure you're on the right side of the dam! I think itchy boots did an interesting one about the dams, she did quite a lot of stuff about the Netherlands when Covid hit. I got bored of it but if I was moving there Id probably have found it a bit more interesting!

Nice work. Do you need to have stuff like a horn on the bike for an MOT type thing or do they not have vehicle safety inspections there?

Yeh.....I thought that! So I'm trying to work my way into a horsey type group. We plan to go to Groningen province in the north east which is where our son lives.

These guys do a lot of the extreme rally's like the elephant rally so travel in snow and ice plus as Mawsley said carry more kit

The Friday night was ok it was dry all night (except in my tent) but a very windy and was a proper pub camp site, and the evening was spent eating drinking and talking bullshit in the pub, quite civilised really. i was up and packed before the rain hit Saturday so only got wet on the way home. Photos pinched from else where, you get a different clientele to this rally then the summer ones not so many dickheads Notice how old every fucker is very few youngsters at all These two on the outside had travelled over 600 miles from Aingeray in France and they weren't the only ones from over the pond

CCM , first one Titanium , a snip at 28k

Naah, it's no problem, I grew up just always knowing I was adopted, even before I really knew what that meant. As far as I'm concerned my parents are who raised me. I was born mid september, count back 9 months and thats Christmas or new year so a pissed up shag at a party is a likely scenario, in 1971 abortions were not easy to come by and a young single girl couldn't raise a child alone and the stigma of if often meant, at the time, that she would have lost the support of her family. I know nothing of the circumstances but I know she didn't abandon me on a doorstep or anthing as her name appears on my birth certificate. I have never had the least inclination to know her name or anythig else except that I have had to get a full unabridged copy of my birth certificate for my French nationality request. This is when I discovered the name of my birth mother. Now I have that information I can ask for my full birth certificate from the General Registry Office in the uk. I have been putting this off because in doing so I have to open the dossier from the adoption agency. IF my birth mother has made any attempt to contact me or find out what happened to me in the last 50 years, a record of it will be in that dossier. IF she made an official request to be allowed to contact me, a letter from her will be in that dossier. So, if there is nothing, nothing changes but I will know I was not wanted. If there is a letter or something then I will know more about the why's and wherefore's and the onus will be on me to follow it up... or not. I can't decide which i'd prefer as I have enjoyed living in ignorance all these years. therin lies my angst, there's no heartbreak or sadness.

The sun has been around this weekend so we took the opportunity to try out our new 23Zero Awning. We spoiled ourselves and got the add on walls. WOW!!! So nice, so much space.......LOVE IT!!!! . It will make for a nice set up if we decide to stay somewhere for a few days. This is not fully set up, didn't stake it in, but it just makes the 4Runner disappear......cool camouflage!