Leaderboard

We are spending it down with my parents, unsure if we are visiting the inlaws as they've made no attempts to arrange anything with the wife and she's sick of doing all the travelling for the ungrateful cunts anyway. Not that they celebrate Xmas or birthdays in any way shape or form because her mums a jahovas tosspot and would just ruin it. They also never ask how skye is doing or attempt to contact us regarding her which just shows you what they are like. There was no birthday presents for her this year at any rate so fuck em. Other than that we have a few friends who we plan to see down there and generally have a bit of a piss up

I hope you find them, apparently they don't sell them in Spain as there's no market for them. I think the reason is something to do with Welsh ginger puddle dodgers

Is that the welsh version of a Spa ? or are are you getting naked in the local corner shop

Its the works Christmas party next Friday so as long as i survive that i will be breaking up for Christmas on the 23rd and don't go back to work until the 9th. Its a busy one for me this year, the wife and i are going up the local club on the 23rd and my daughter and her boyfriend are going to join us which is a shock. The 24th we are out for a meal then it will be the usual hang around Christmas day and boxing day stuffing ourselves stupid. The 30th is the TRF Christmas ride where i will try and work off some of the crap i ate, then new years eve we're off clubbing in Swansea and spending the night, the wife won another competition for new years day so we will heading straight from Swansea to the Celtic Manor and will be spending the day and night boiling the alcohol out of our bodies from the night before in their spa plus the usual visiting in between that

Going to Idaho for Christmas....gonna celebrate my wife's birthday as well, which is on the 21st.

I am working, kids are all teenagers and just care about the money. I don't like christmas much anyway. Suppose I will get some socks and pants.. Woohoo!

You guys should try bump starting a bike in the winter....used to do that EVERYday with my 550 Seca Electric starters are for pussies!

They have better snow in Poland!

Mr. Slowly is praying for Paris.

Taken this morning. They had to drag me to school when I was little as well.

And it's getting closer.......end of next week! So what you lot got planned? In our case this is going to be an odd one because we haven't had small children around at Xmas since the 1990's. And probably it's the only one we'll ever have with the children because they're moving to Madrid in February. So just got to make the most of it because we sure as hell won't be welcome there next year. On the subject of the fucking fat cunt, apparently she's going to stay in the flat on her own when our boy and the grandkids come up for Xmas Dinner! Fine by me cos she'll only start trouble and ruin Xmas for everybody if she shows her fucking ugly face. And amongst this Jeremy Kyle scenario I want to get out on the bike.....hopefully I'll get a Xmas Day ride in at some point during the day. As always I've got work to do over the Xmas Day - New Years Day period so I won't be able to totally step away from it unfortunately. That's how it looks to be going down at the moment......but things do tend to have a habit of changing when you're living in a Jeremy Kyle episode! OK.....what about you?

Don't tell six that he'll already be on his way there.....

He said it himself!

Plenty of parking space for the Transit. A bit unsure how Christmas is going to pan out. Daughter maybe at work on Christmas day........son in law having his 2 kids from a previous relationship on Christmas day (a pair of little shits) and night. So I think it will be just me and the wife here on Christmas day........Boxing day.....nothing sorted. Wonder if Mallory Park Plum Pudding meeting is on..

think i'll go round @Clive

We're here for Christmas day, but hopefully flying to the UK on Boxing day to visit family for a couple of days.........all depending on strikes etc.

I didn't even know Darby and Jones clubs were a thing there?

Definitely the latter....thank fuck there's no sheep around eh

24th drive to oxford 25th meet up with the AP's ( Aged Parents) on Christmas day at Church which will make their dreams come true ( yes I'm a vicar's son) and thence on to sisters for Lunch, from there on and untill we drive home on the 29th, it's anybodies guess.

minus 6 here too this morning, but just a deep frost, no snow.

Are you serious @skyrider , that huge 223cc motor has got that much compression has it

Footage from last year

Only place left in Wales with a club

6 below this morning took me 20 minutes to get in the van as i washed it on Friday and i didn't look at it until this morning every door frozen shut and the snow on it was frozen solid

socks and undies at least they are something you can use and arn't fattening

No snow here, we sent it all to England, fuck em.

Trouble is leaving a battery go flat for extended periods of time is no good for it either, I have an intelligent battery tender that shuts off when its not needed so is not continuously charging and i swap that between 4 bikes so its never on the same bike for months on end one of the best things to do is take the battery off and keep it somewhere warm. My garage is heated and i'm still on the original battery on the CRF bought in March 2016.

Plenty left here there's three 15 minutes walk from my house but not the right clubs for me full of 15 year olds that cant handle their beer

01st December is a national holiday in Portugal, it celebrates the restoration of independence following a period of union between Spain and Portugal. This happened in 1640 and is a pretty big deal for the History of Portugal as a country. This also means that all my clients are closed, and to me that meant that very little had to be done and very little surprise calls arrived. It contributes immensely to letting go of the real world. The day started with my usual berber breakfast of msmen and hot coffee, looking out into the dunes. With nowhere specific to go, I left with the task to ride around enjoying myself and then have lunch somewhere. Not a bad plan to have! The bike was started and traction control turned off, doing that to be able to easily move off from the overnight parking location is something that greatly appeals to me, also the 6 or 7km commute to Merzouga to buy Sofia a souvenir from Morocco without touching tarmac just reinforces that I could live with nice sandy roads instead of tarmac, on my way to Merzouga in the morning: Having done my shopping, I simply went out with a clear heading, away from town and in the general direction of some hills in the distance, I've never been there so as good a destination as any when all you want is to ride around a little. What happened next left me ecstatic, the bike now had a third of it's fuel load and my confidence had increased, this meant I confidently rode through soft sand sections like this oued below, here stopping to choose if taking the left or right paths right it was, and a little further on stopped to look at camels. Camels out roaming by themselves are great, they will completely disregard you as a thing of no importance to their day, and almost in a royal manner glide away with their smooth but effective stride. A later stop to drink water had me spend a few moments looking for fossils, Maria had a neck for finding them right there on the ground whenever we stopped, and I've got a small collection in my kitchen. I, however, am useless at stopping in the right location and managed to not find a single one on this trip, despite a few tries to look around for lost things whenever I stopped in a rocky area. As I am looking around, a curious desert bird decided to inspect my bike, on the pictures below you'll see it firstly floating around the right of the bike and then giving the bmw heated grips a try on the left hand grip: The little bird was scared away when a pickup drove to me and stopped, the driver quickly inviting me for tea at his mine with a big smile, and I accepted, as is only polite to do so. Followed the pickup at a distance so not to eat all of it's dust, and parked up the hill, they were most impressed but then I noticed the chinese bike one of them rode there. The mine owner was driving over with a big pot of stew for the guys' lunch or dinner, and oranges for dessert. At least a few of them sleep there during the week, it is a hard life! Always with a smile and a sense of pride, they showed me their labour, taking out rocks from the holes deep into the rocky hills and then sending them to a plant for extracting the minerals that were after used all over the world I don't know what for. Safety conditions seemed dire, and work was obviously very hard, I was treated to some great mint tea though. With an open invitation to pop by for tea whenever I pleased, I rode away. This time not stopping on any of the locations I previously took pictures of, gliding by with not a single foot on the ground through soft sand and phesh phesh felt great. That fine desert silt feels almost like water sometimes and you can feel it splashing onto the back of your legs like if riding through a deep water puddle. The bike is dragged down and you have to keep powering a little up to not be bogged down. Power too much and you'll gain too much speed and your acceleration is no longer sustainable, power too little and you'll be pulled down, you'll lose momentum and eventually the heavy mass becomes too heavy to control. The GS's boxer is an amazing help to dealing with the bike's weight, at anything over 2500/3000 rpm a quick throttle blip in second/third/fourth in soft sand and you'll power out of mosts things with a smooth amount of wheelspin. It all feels very controlable and confidence inducing, and it's a great high to be on that fine balance. I become lost and go up a hill to find my way back, even on trails it's very easy for me to lose my way around this open terrain. I ride back to Merzouga and stop at an edge of town café for lunch. The turkey grilled was amazingly seasoned, it was a lovely plate of food that I scoffed down at 13:30 after a hunger inducing morning on the bike. The bike was parked under it's cover facing out until the next morning and after a shower I spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the dunes with my sparrow friends. Couldn't bring myself to go up the dune, though, it was just too hard of a thing to do. The next day, I would ride off in the morning.

They sound like fucking weirdos Rich?

The new environmentally friendly bidets need a little refining.....!

Our snow has nearly all melted now but it's still feckin freezing . I wonder if @Slowlycatchymonkey managed to get to Bristol as loads of flights were diverted last night, some went to Paris

Just seen the weather in Britain.....

i am my boss and i do what the fuck i want..... Netflix all day it is then

It's started

I seem to see faces everywhere, probably some sort of illness. Or watching to much HR Pufanstuff as a child.

28th November, Monday, I wake up in absolute silence feeling what you feel when you´re warm in bed and it's clearly cold outside and it's been a quiet sleep, however, I mustn't lay in bed too late as there's a tasty breakfast awaiting and my plan for today's ride is to go on mountains, over more than 2000 meters through broken roads and challenging terrain, I've done that before but in summertime the days are a lot longer and the risk of being in the mountains after sunset isn't being really really cold. Also, particularly exciting and always in my head was trying out a pass that I did previously intended on doing but never did because of rains and whatever. Being alone gave me a freedom of choice that comes with not having someone precious holding on to you, and also a lot higher offroad capability from not carrying a passenger. Firstly, packed everything onto the bike and went for breakfast. I like to have the bike all ready to go before breakfast, just putting on the helmet and tightening the jacket without the fuss of luggage feels a lot more relaxed when you do go. Now, I drink wine frequently at home, and you would think that quitting that alcohol intake would make me lose weight when on the road here, but what empty calories I no longer ingest here are amply replaced and more with breakfast calories and sugar, Moroccan breakfast pancakes are a weakness that I indulge in, and when it's really cold in the morning and you're setting off just one hour after sunrise having a good warm breakfast in you is very enticing. So, msmen and eggs and orange juice and coffee: Starting up I usually don't warm up my bike, but after a cold night outside and the oil at 05 or 06 degrees, I do: From my hotel making way to Boumia and the mountains, if you want to check on google maps you go from Boumia to Imilchil via the tiniest numbered roads available, this is my stuff! The bikes rides really well in altitude, the speeds are low because it's really twisty and the surface is challenging, plus the people here are ultra friendly. When there's no effort being made to translate road signs, you are on the right kind of roads I came up to this school transport van, which are frequently the most modern and better vehicles in rural Morocco, in the mountains they usually have double wheels in the back and are driven quite competently over a variety of challenging terrains, I stopped to let it cross this oued because I couldn't ride as slowly as it did. All the kids inside were waving back. As I was waiting for the van to cross the water, I was approached by a young kid wanting to take a picture of me, after I said yes and struck a pose I offered to take a picture of himself on my bike using his phone, and he was delighted, this in turn brought in two of his friends and we spent a few moments there. That was very cool, kids are quick to come up to you and ask for stuff like candy or a dirham, but once you stop and engage them offering a sit on your bike they suddenly are out of their confort zone and instead become curious and treat you with hospitality, such as their elders treat travelers. It's a good thing to experience, they still asked me for a sweet but I only had a tiny piece of cake wrapped in paper from the breakfast, they promptly split it three ways which ended up being barely nothing for each of them, and gave the biggest part to the girl. That makes you appreciate things. Riding on: Again, once upon a time all this was tarmac: I stop for a few work calls, my phone re-entering an area with data coverage that it was monday and I had a few emails arriving. The fact that I was parked in the below location while everyone that I spoke to in Spain and Portugal pictured me in an office made me feel very cool and special. Gusts of dry dust over a mountain pass beat a desk everyday! While that was happening, Morocco was going on around me: I reach Imilchil at 14:00, and stop for hot mint tea, Imilchil is a small town that feels epic. You get there are are bombarded with smells from grilled meats, coal smoke from bbq wafts in the air, there's exposed animals hanging from the butchers, dust blows, it's high in the mountains so it feels like adventure, pure adventure! Also people will salute you in a respectful way to then leave you about your business, it's one of my favourite places ever to stop for tea while making you feel like Indiana Jones. From Imilchil I go South, and at Agoudal consider what gorge to take down into the plains, Todra Gorge is very scenic with a very easy road, the colours of the sandy rocks is gold and it's an amazing experience at the end of the day under sunset lights. However, I went via the Dades Gorge. The R704 is one of Morocco's great roads, in my opinion, it's in the map in yellow and has a speed limit of 80kmh for the most part. This is very Morocco as you'll see, it's a very dangerous road if you're caught on a storm as the drops are fierce more so if you are driving a truck as it's a narrow road, or it used to be. They are making it wider and tarmac, they're working from each end and at first I'm disappointed to find this: But then, all of a sudden, the new safe and wide road ends and you're back to the old mountain pass, that's a good thing because to drive at illegal speeds here means to ride properly: My iPhone's camera doesn't translate the depth of the surrounding views: Again, I strike a pose, it felt silly but made me feel accompanied This R704 is amazing, I might have to go back next year because this is going to end and wide safe tarmac just doesn't have the same appeal. And just like that, it's over and returns to a normal Gorge road, with concrete oued crossings and village kids playing after school The first time I was in Morocco, in 2014 on the 1150GS, I remember coming this way on the oposite side and being turned back because the rains had caused mudslides to block the road, it was much narrower and more dangerous back then, but the views remain impressive: The long shadow reminds me I'm about to run out of sunlight and go for my planned hotel, but first still have to ride down into the riverside and into the gorge itself Although the sun was going down and already 17:30, some locations are just mandatory stops. Plus now it's all pretty much nice tarmac through easy marked locations so it's no longer a problem if night arrives. The below picture is one of Morocco's most publicized bits of road, and it was shot from the hotel I planed on staying, it was opening in 2016 when I stayed there with Maria and Rui, but I arrived a few days too late and they had closed for the season. Instead I rode another 5 or 10km and stayed somewhere else, arriving just as the sun drops bellow the mountains. Parked the bike in front, and still had time to have a hot shower and to sit outside with my laptop for a bit, before dark and coldness really arrived. The complimentary tea and cookies were good hospitality, I forgot I only had that tea at Imilchil since breakfast, riding kept me busy since morning. Dinner was a little bit of a missed hit on them, it was included in the room price as sometimes it is around these parts as you can't just pop out down the street for a restaurant. The hot pumpkin soup was amazing, the rest was a little weird but A for effort anyway. I liked it was hot and comforting, but not really memorable. Bedding was comforting, two layers of blankets over the sheets in a firm mattress, it felt cozy under heavy covers sheltered from a cold sharp night outside. I fell asleep late but comfortably, and slept soundly as one does after a busy day of dust and big views.

Some nicknames that have been given to Glasgow characters by their friends and workmates: Two Soups - his real name is Campbell Baxter. Norrie Two Bunnets - the Glasgow taxi-driver who wears a wig under his cloth cap. The Colostomy - the girlfriend of a married man (i.e. the wee bag on the side). The Boomerang Kid - whenever anyone at work asks a question, he always replies: 'I'll get back to you on that. ' The Parachute - lets everyone down at the last minute. Cashline - an experienced young lass who's open 24 hours a day. Vaseline - his real name is Willie Burns. Rembrandt - loves saying to colleagues: 'Let me put you in the picture...' Bo Derek - a chap called Derek with terrible body odour. Brewer's Droop - his real name is Willie Falls .. The Genie - magically appears whenever anyone opens a bottle. Dulux - his pals reckon he's only got one coat. Soapy - washes his hands of any problems that crop up.. Captain Hook - continually late for work, it's believed he must be scared of the alarm clock. The Yeti - always on the sick, there have been many unconfirmed sightings of this guy, but nobody can prove he actually exists. The Gas Man - he's serviced loads of old boilers. The Hostage - when anyone asks for help he always replies: 'Sorry, my hands are tied. The Chernobyl Jannie - during the mid-Eighties this guy had a really bad complexion. The Woodpecker - he's always tapping.. Mussolini - a woman in an office in Glasgow who has rather loose morals (aka the great dicktaker) The Olympic Flame - He never goes oot Cannae - architect called David cope who wasn't always great under pressure. "cannae cope" Forty - sales director surname of watt and nickname because she was a bit dim. 1Tony Madge Share ON THIS DAY 10 years ago Active Saul Sandey · Shared with Your friends

What I used to do was upload all the images into photobucket or whatever it was called and then copy the image codes into a word document with a clue next to each so I knew what they were. Then I would write out the text into Word and paste the image codes in between the text in the right places. Finally copy and paste the whole thing into Pete's little box. Now if I wanted to do it the same way I download the pictures into my Versys forum photo area and grab the codes from there. Photobucket wanted mucho money carry on doing that so fuck 'em.