MooN

My day today was good, not only did I manage to get out on the bike for a couple of hours, but whilst out I saw a couple of things that really made me smile. The first was as I rode slowly through a very small village, I saw, almost out of the corner of my eye, a girl ( about 15 i'd guess) pusing a scooter out of her yard onto the street. It was obviously a very new scooter and she had a grin from ear to ear, which would clearly have been even bigger had her ears only been further apart. My imagination decided that she'd got the scooter for Christmas and apart from a quick whizz round the yard, this was her first time out alone on it andd she was off to see her mates in the next village. I remembered the first few miles on my first scooter and the joy at the sudden freedom and autonomy it brought at 16 years old. That made me smile. 2nd thing was ridng through Auxerre, nearly home, light failing fast into dusk, that time of day they call "Entre Chien et Loup" ( between dog and wolf) here. I heard him before I saw him, that bane of the French towns and cities, the Breeeeeeeeeeet, Breeeeeet, breet, breeeeeeeeeeeet, of a home tuned baffle-less 50cc 2-stroke moped, mostly black and dressed in black he was not easy to see as he had no headlight on either. The speed limit along the quays in auxerre is 20kph and he undertook me doing about 50 I guess. I caught him up as we left the town limits and the speed indicated increased to 70kph, which he could just about manage though God knows what rpm he was pulling to do so ( they're only legally allowed to do 50kph max,). I saw he had a number plate, but no rear light on. I overtook him and pointed to the front of his bike and to my eyes to tell him to switch his lights on ( easy mistake to make under street lights when your headlight is only about 6watts. I slowed to give way ath the roundabout and he pulled up alongside me asking mw what I meant, but I had a closer look at his machine I just laughed and said " I was trying to tell you to switch your lights on, but I now see you don'e even have any..." "Naah" he said " spoils the look, no lights no indicators, no mirrors" and off he went "Breeeeeeeeeeet, breet,Breeeeeeeeeet..." in a cloud of 2 stroke fumes and into the rapidly falling night, up the road towards Chablis. That made me smile.

Got out for a couple of ours on the tiger this afternoon, overcast and dampish but pleasantly positive temperatures. I rode Northwards into the Forét D'Othe and had a troll round just following my nose. I only stopped a couple of times cos I'm using my phone for pics and it's a palaver with winter gloves etc. I found some nice, not too wet, gravel tracksnorth of Esnon and followed it round in a loop bringing me back alomost to it's starting point about 8 or 10 km later Having been northish for about 45 minutes, I turned east and rode towards what would have been a nice sunset had the clouds not been quite so thick Light was failing so I turned southwards and left a bit back towards Home along some nice open back roads Got home just as dusk started setting in.

new years day in the Forét D'Othe.

I didn't get any pics of our Christmas day feed but My Sister dis us proud. We we're expecting a cold buffet and we'd brought cheese ( French , smelly) and wine ( White, St Bris, sauvignon and Red, St Bris, Cesar) but she surprised us with a massive tradional Christmas dinner. Ham in place of turkey but otherwise the full monty, sprouts, stuffing balls, bread sauce, pigs in blankets etc etc etc. I hadn't had a "Proper" Christmas dinner in 20 years so Best Christmas Present Ever! This was our new years trough, just the 4 of us ( No1 being still in Liverpool) we'd visited Bicester Village luxury designer outlet hell-hole on the 28th cos the twins wanted Vivienne Westwood Jewlery, which they got. On arriving home on the 29th we learned of Westwood's death. the twins wanted to do a Vivienne Westwood themed table : Then came the food. The "entrée" ( which I skipped and just had another drink) forgetting to take a pic till after the battle... A dozen "Escargots de Bourgone aux beurre d'ail" ( Snails in garlic butter sauce). Followed by Honey braised beef in a cider sauce with Gratin Dauphinoise, All washed down with a nice bottle of Chablis. Yule log from the local patisserie to finish but I was too pissed and busy eating to take a pic

wife's boss ( pharmacist) does testing regularly at the pharmacy, cos the number of people needing testing is growing and there are no testing centres anymore, says that the autotests are not very reliable either way and can give false negatives and false positives simply because of the parameters of the test. With the best will in the world, most people doing home tests don't or can't respect all of the parameters exactly, the depth of specimen in the sinus + the transfer to the test + temperature and humidity conditions + sterile workspace + time critical results etc etc etc. The tests are designed to be as acurate as possible and as supple as possible with the base parameters but any parameter adjustment will reduce the accuracy of the test results a little, add them all together and add into the mix the inherent inaccuracy percentage and you have a load of false results. If you test a number of times with the same result it's probably ok, if not get a PCR to be sure. Then again, he sells the bloody things and gets paid for testing so how reliable is his opinion...?

Bonne Année to all of you.

that's what I would do naturally, but would have no way of knowing without asking, wether I was adressing a Huron or an Alonquin. Also, if you follow the logoque fully then "Cheyenne" ( for example) would also be incorrect as it was the French trappers who referred to them as Dog indiens or "Chiens" which was rapidly mispronounced by the English or Americain traders as "Cheyenne". is that a derogatory term? is it impossible to have a collective noun for a race that is not sooner or later ill percieved by either those directly concerned or by someone not concerned but sufficiently "WOKE" to feel they have the right to be offended by it. I doubt it.

fixed.

Isn't the PC term " First Nation" now?

buy a dictionary and look up the definition of camping. That ain't it.

Yesterday I drove back from Oxford to Auxerre. Today I am mostly recuperating from 5 days in the UK. ( is it me or have the roads all gone to shit rcently? )

" Function is Form" as they say and much as I dislike the idea of Bobo neleg doing the grand slam and being Mod AND MOTY AND BOTY , his DR is clean in every sense of the word, and functional. It also gets used properly so I'm voting for that one. If i'm around for the last minte vote swapping I may have to swap for Fred's Affy twin, but we'll see. Ummm, there's Pedro's beheme there too.... oh fuck it, I dunno, pick one out of a hat?

I'll admit I had to look that one up.

Plenty of people have high IQ but can't be allowed out in public unaccompanied...

last pic on my phone in the show room at work, I'm still trying to learn all the different models and makes we deal with

WTF?

I'm not sure that being certifiably insane doesn't count as cheating due to unfair advantage, so for me Marcel is out. I think Six's Van reports take the biscuit, so I'm going to nominate @Six30

I'm going to nominate @Sir Fallsalot. Despite disparaging comments from certain quarters about his camera skills, when he does do a ride report its always good, he does some really sketchy shit on his bike and always writes with humour, be it a ride report or a work anecdote. He also always replies with useful info in the workshop bit.

I still have vivid memories of the first bike trip I organised to the uk with 4 or 5 mates from here. We visited my parents, my mum cooked and we had hours of fun trying to explain "Toad in the Hole" ( Le crapaud dans le trou) before moving on to cheesecake, which is neither cake mor cheese...

there's no meat in a mince pie Marcel.

Paris ( which doesn't really count as part of France and the south west mostly

@Tango, any round your way?

I'm sure there are some Bob, in the midi or dordogne I imagine where the big Brit ex-pat communities are / were.

no, thank God. qctuqlly I think there's a "comptoir Irlandais" in Dijon where N01 daughter buys the occasional pot of marmite, or gets me a packet of custard creams from time to time.