yen_powell

I think this is about 2014, Corfu hire bike. The bloke let me try a few different bikes around a little test track to see which I preferred, but given a choice I will always go for a Suzuki (No Excuse) DR350. No room for jacket and boots in the old suitcase so it was t-shirt and trainers and keep the arms tucked in when passing between brambles. Riding through the twisty hill villages with a very loud pipe is weird, the old people all wave and smile as you pass them sitting outside. Over here they snarl and ring the council, not that I have loud pipes myself, the quieter the better for me on my own bikes.

I normally give up on threads with lots of pics as on this particular site, with my very slow internet connection (1.3Mb/s today), they just flash 2 shades of grey for ages until they eventually materialise and it makes my head hurt. BUT, I held on because of what you said about the abandoned bar and it was worth waiting for, especially that hat! If you go back, take a little tripod and a tea towel. Pop the tea towel over you arm and stand behind the bar for the perfect barman shot.

You git. Well you have the one of me laying in the mid to put on now.

I forgot about this picture, super stylish. Just laying down for a tactical rest before going on to win stylishly of course. It's all in the planning.

Thank you. It's even dated, I drew that in 2005 apparently, 'Braintree to Mile End', my commute at the time, long time since I have worked at Mile End.

Roughing it in the wastelands, barely surviving, miles from civilisation, dangerously near water (I can't swim).

I thought he had bought the bike from the people repairing it, but must have been wrong.

My next oil change is due at 106,000 miles. I will make a lovely job of getting all the oil into the drain tray, none will leak over the floor, the filter will be carefully emptied so as not to splash anything. And then I will blood kick the drain tray by accident or some other clumsiness and there will be oil everywhere. I am like the Jack Douglas of oil changes.

Sorry, have I misunderstood, he paid for all those replacement parts?

I must have got it about 99/2000, not sure anymore. I haven't ridden it since about 2010. Hopefully I will get it going again.

I mentioned Suzuki today.....whilst trying to wrestle my DR350's swing arm back into place without the whole thing falling over and without the end caps dropping off every time I nearly got everything lined up. I did not say nice words!

Remember the joke where the lady went into the garage and asked for a bottle of L10?

It's a nice castle, but I think it is closed to the public and just used for weddings now. Kentwell Hall in Long Melford on the other hand is a large Elizabethan manor house, got a proper moat, hedges you can walk inside, underground ice house, a farm, huge grounds and a very old camera obscura that you can just go in and have a go yourself (if you know what one of those is). And on certain weekends you can watch people dressed up as twats and acting historical parts for your amusement. The first time I went into the kitchen, a large breasted woman shouted 'passage' at me and pushed past me with a bowl of boiling water. This she then poured down the Elizabethan indoor toilet which apparently was a thing to have in the kitchen as you could chuck the cooking waste down it as well, it all plops into the moat outside the window. The next time I went, there was a bloke using a long bow at some targets. An old couple hove into view standing next to the target and started taking pictures of him just as he was about to let loose. My dad lived in a castle for a few months when he was an apprentice electrician, Allington Castle in Kent. They were doing a rewire for the nuns (Our Lady of Mount Carmel) who had just moved in. He took us there when we were kids and they let me climb into the secret passage/priest hole after pulling a panel out of a seat. It's a private residence now belonging to the bloke who started the MORI opinion poll, so you can't visit it anymore.

Pop up the road to Lavenham whilst you are in the area https://goo.gl/maps/Dzb9WeNAmgM4t1MQ7 then take a slow wander round the streets. Same for Castle Hedingham, ignore the castle, wander the streets of the village on foot, then pop next door to the steam railway which you will probably hear tooting every 10 minutes. Oh and Kersey https://goo.gl/maps/qiQhN1E18g2SAUMK7 . People think Essex is full of yobs and electric pylons, but that is the south. North Essex is rammed with medieval timber framed cottages, not just the villages, but every tiny lane you go down you will find tucked away gems. They can cost a million quid plus to buy some of the bigguns, I reckon there's a hundred thousand millionaires tucked away in the countryside there because no one else can afford the house prices.

Is that a real thing? I thought cuttlefish were like a sort of squid. We only saw the white bone-like bits on the beach when I was a kid, they were everywhere, never saw the creature they came from though.

You need one of those 'twats per mile' charts like the stage show, Are You Dave Gorman. He set out to find every other person called Dave Gorman in the world after a pub bet, a very funny show (and book) with a young Danny Wallace involved, mostly against his will.

There's an old Knights' Templar property about 2 or 3 minutes from me. They do a very good event and it's free to get in when no events are on if you just fancy a picnic or a wander round the herb garden. The timber framed barns are feckin huge inside, and they still have the original builder's bills, one is 800 years old this year. Have a look at the pictures at the bottom of the linked site, shame there are no people in the pictures for scale, makes the buildings look smaller than they are. https://www.explore-essex.com/places-to-go/find-whats-near-me/cressing-temple-barns

Put them in with a lion and see if the lion salivates.

Ahh, now come on, it can't be all that bad, plenty of people try and live in the UK, they even risk their lives to get here, missing out the chance to stay in plenty of European countries on the way. I mean, it can't be for our brilliant climate can it. I'd be more worried if I lived in a desolate wasteland with no people in it, I'd wonder why no one was there!

Did I write that? Maybe, can't remember.

Getting the hang of it now.

It worked Pete, thank you.