Slowlycatchymonkey

Its a thing you know! If you get a good match with a low inbreeding coefficient you'll travel wherever.

They look like they're worth breeding from. Sturdy, reasonable limb length, good width muzzle. I'd have one, preferably black n tan though.

What's wrong with that?

Sunshine Bananaboat and Star Gazer? Chardonnay and L'oreal? Beyonce and Rhianna?

Now I really want to know, spill the beans!

This place was on one of Henry Coles Motorbike progs. The man who owns the place says he has to make sure people who want to move there really understand the downsides and that mainly people are very happy there. He seemed vaguely embarrassed he owns all of it. Those cobbles look savage though, imagine them icey in the winter no thanks.

These are some seriously good aged textures you've captured in these pics. So nice to look at. Thankyou.

If you read his book (not the best read in the world) it sounded like he just had a funny five minutes and when the young woman was brought to his room the reality of pimps and her having to sell her body to pay for her kids food was a bit much.

No he doesnt but his wife had just died, he lost his business and wasn't in a great headspace when he decided to bugger off around the world.

Nice I can't help thinking if I sat like that for any length of time Id get pins n needles!

Ah I'm back from the festival, wrote that a couple of days after, just takes a while to upload it all on here and forgot to amend it! Its rare to read a motorbike travel book where the traveller doesn't at some point unwittingly end up staying in a dodgy love motel, or at least they always claim its unwitting! Apart from one guy (Mark Holmes RTW on a Triumph Rocket) who said he deliberately ordered a prostitute and then ended up just talking to her about his woes.

Never had any complaints from Mr Slowly.

Its usually in areas with good transport links and employment opportunities, so the coastal etc. Someone who cant afford rent doesn’t want to live in the sticks and pay to run a car.

A lot of the EU islands do ‘golden tickets’ often its buy a property and make a donation dressed up as some official document like ‘express route’ etc. Malta was hauled over the coals for outright selling citizenship- £600,000 on a property (or a rental of over £16k a year) for 5 years and only £10k to the ‘Citizenship Investment Programme’ Their response to the EU was tough titty “its within the rules that we set our own standards for citizenship and no we’re not going to stop” 6 months of the year is currently more than enough for me, though that might change the further into it I get. Warning- lots of information below you haven’t asked for and might want to skip! Some other things I found that you might find useful- The lack of responsibility that renting brings makes the initial bedding in easier, something breaks its not your problem (or cost) so no dealing with Spanish workmen, bureaucracy leaves you alone because legally you don’t live there, your landlord (assuming they’re not an arsehole and want to keep their nice pays on time British tenant) helps you out for free with Spanish stuff you don’t understand like the wifi contracts and how things work (this is priceless). Interpretation services are expensive so if you don’t speak the lingo you’re left trying to decipher it or having to trust the person selling to you and we all know where that can lead. Then apart from the impending doom of desertification and water shortages (this is real, water is already sold on the black market in Spain- the money for the desalination plant was embezzled) theres also the worry of leaving your property unattended when they have a real problem with squatting (Pete can confirm this). You only have to demonstrate you’ve been in a property 24hrs (by chucking a few dirty plates about) before they have significant rights and it has to go through the courts, this can take years. Professional criminal gangs use it to extort money in a variety of enterprising ways but if its not yours this doesn’t matter. I’d definitely recommend renting to start with until you find your feet, get into the Spanish way of being (mostly just chill the fuck out- you’re not in Blighty anymore) and decide if its really for you. The majority of people pack up and go home within 3 years of arriving with their bank balances severely whopped. Ultimately I decided I’d rather buy a property in the UK where I have full legal rights, understand the language, customs and systems and use the rent from that property to fund a place in Spain. Should it go tits up (and politically it could) I can walk away with my investment in the UK intact. It also means if I decide after a few years I’ve had enough of Spain theres nothing to stop me leaving with ease and renting a place in any other country I fancy trying out and I wouldn’t be limited to just EU countries. Im aiming for have my cake and eat it

Its a rolling 90 days in a 180 day period. That totals 6 months of every year They’ve just approved UK passport holders using the EU ‘Egates’ at airports so they may eventually get their shit together and know how long someone’s been in the country but at the moment no-one knows/cares or even understands how to calculate it. Of course its Spain so the Egate roll out that was supposed to be ready for beginning July has already been delayed til September and then “you may have to still have your passport stamped” they clearly can’t marry up the old and new system

Yer its not clear is it. Mostly here in the UK cos of the six month rule for non EU members and theres work which still isn’t set up to run without us being here most of the time. Definitely home for the summer months regardless and anticipate we will be every year. Come home for the summer, Christmas and Easter and you’re pretty much on 5 months in the UK without trying. Have looked into buying EU citizenship but its waaay PRICEY and we’re still in the experimental phase.

China, its got to be china!

Happy Sunday One of my sons 21st birthday tomoz. Cant believe it’s 21 years already, I still feel like I should be able to pick him up like a baby for a cuddle. In reality he’s a hairy bearded man 4 times my size Lots of birthday prep to do today and my dads popping round to pick up his duty free. First I’m off to get some breakfast together so we have enough energy to get through all the jobs! Hope some of you are getting out for a ride, the weather looks good!

It would be a long unbearable walk to somewhere with a phone reception praying a random turns up! Those satellite phones are expensive arent they, then again doing what you do for a living it could be a justifiable business expense for someone who needs to be contactable at all times…

Once you lose faith in a vehicle its finished cos your just waiting it to let you down again and even if it doesnt that feeling spoils it, so yer it has to go.

Its a shame it sounded like you would have enjoyed that bike a lot. Maybe with time your previous BMW experience will un-sully the brand in your mind. Having a bike your wife also likes is worth a fair bit.

Jesus wept. Its a bit early on a Sunday morning for that, I was about to start putting breakfast together, I’m gonna have to wait a while now

The reality was pretty far away from the jolly little excursion I had imagined Your bike disappointment is just gutting.

Today is ferry day. Theres not far to go and forecast is warm/hot and sunny, slight cloud no rain.. apparently! I dress accordingly, light summer clothing and a mesh jacket, the forecast soon becomes very wrong. It’s a torrential downpour that just doesn’t stop, well maybe it does briefly when you’re so high in the mountains the zero visibility cloud shrouds you and can’t see more that 2 feet ahead. Had a nice little stop before the shitstorm hit at a garage that sold one of my favourite road snacks- Conguitos. Spains much loved cringey illustrated chocolate covered peanuts, then the heavens opened. So so wet and cold with only a waterproof jacket over the mesh and no waterproof trousers I can’t feel my hands or feet that are sloshing around in boots filled to the brim with rain water. Then the inevitable phone thing happens “liquid detected” and charging stopped but that wasn’t all that stopped. So did the navigation, although completely stopping would have been a blessing over the strange conniption that kept directing us up the mountain away from the port. The Brittany ferry website telling us its clearly signposted couldn’t have been further from the truth, there were no signs, zero. Mr Slowly thinks they must have changed the layout and not replaced the signs. After several loops in among many other lost vehicles we are separated. I eventually stop in a side road despairing at the satnav trying to direct me back up up the mountain again so I sit in a bus stop looking at my phone willing it to work and hoping the incessant rain will stop. It didn’t, it got a lot heavier and by now I’m so cold I can’t stop shaking. I briefly consider giving up and finding a hotel before a sudden wave of “fuck you sat nav” washed over me and I let my phone know “youre a piece of shit, its a fucking ferry, its going to be at sea level not up a sodding mountain” and headed back to the seafront. Five BMW riders who had passed me 15 minutes earlier whilst sat in my bus stop funk suddenly appeared behind me looking as pissed off as I was. We went our separate ways as they were clearly still trying to follow sat nav and wouldn’t make it, eventually somehow I found my way in to the heaving port to find a relieved Mr Slowly. Mr Slowly shows his true feelings and I manage a smile of relief before resuming a resting bitch face He’d had an angry man in a spanky new range rover shout out the window at him “ARE YOU GOING TO THE PORT? RIGHT IM FOLLOWING YOU” to which he replied you can mate but I can’t find the fucking way in either. He went puce and left He then spied a policeman and rode up a pedestrianised part to ask him how the hell to get into the port, the policeman replied its almost impossible, he should ignore the restricted access signs and to ride though the pedestrians until he reached on the other side of the road, can’t imagine that happening here! Eventually the understandably stroppy BMW riders turned up and we all whined about the lack of any signage and crap satnav. We quickly destroyed the calm clean cabin with wet clothes hanging everywhere and got a couple of bottles of Chablis from the piano bar, purely medicinal you understand, my pruned feet and fingers were unhappy at the fast change from a blue freezing cold to a raging red hot and needed a dose of painkiller. Wannabe trench foot and chilblain fingers The bay of biscay is known for rough seas but the previous crossing lulled us into a false sense of security and we weren’t prepared for what was coming next My favourite anti-emetic (chocolate coated stem ginger) hadn’t faired well in the heat and had the appeal of a dog turd so we just settled for laying there feeling sick. Yum yum We dock the next day and everyone departs for the passport control queue in Plymouth. This is the smaller bike parking side the other side of the boat is even more packed. Ah warm sunshine again We head back home in the long forgotten horrible traffic of the UK both of us having close encounters of the blind cage driver variety, grateful to see our front door a couple of hours later. We now have just one day to unpack and repack before the Adventure Biker Festival which I plan to spend mostly asleep

Stop reading it you wally.