MooN

2 hours and a bit doing a southwards loop using almost exclusively minor backroads. temps were around 10 to 12deg with 7/10ths cloud cover and almost no wind. a chateau that you,ve seen before , Chateau de Faulin, built in the 15th century. Main difference between a !5th century French chateau fort and an english 15th century castle? look closely at the tower on the right The arrow slits are horizontal. Adapted for crossbow use rather than the english longbow which needed vertical slits. ( I know you really needed to know that and will all sleep better for knowing it ) and a very enjoyable 2 hours it was!

sooner or later yes, but don't tell anyone I agreed with you ok?

s'funny how none of these "predictions" were ever bandied about before the events themselves. They are also ALWAYS negative. ( they are also ALWAYS absolute bollox, but that's just my opinion)

never had an automatic before so can't really compare ( though have driven plenty of autos with flappy ears or tiptronic boxes but couldn;t really see the point. I CAN see the point howevr if you're gettting into 4WD and diff lock situations where I wouldn't want an automatic at all. I haven't yet driven the CVT in a mountainous region so can't say how effective it is, except that wth the hybrid version, the electric motor recuperates energy from the wheels to recharge the batteries which makes the engine braking more apparent than most auto boxes.

That actually makes more sense than how it was explained to me last week, sounds like personal bias was getting in the way of factual knowlege. Thanks

my Toyota Auris, which is hybrid and obviously has their CVT ( continuous Variable Transmission) which is a bizarre type of automatic box ( but doesn't actually have "staged" gears as such, has no manual mode. It does have a position with enhanced engine braking and increased energy recuperation via the wheels to recharge the batteries for use in moutainous areas which reduces the amount of actual brake needed.

yes indeed, 2 years since we saw them last, almost to the day.

a report in the UK last week suggested that the majority of todays university students will be repaying their student loans well into their 60's...! average cost of a years at university inthe UK now at somewhere between 10 and 15 thousand pounds?! I'm sooooglad i refused that path when it was offered me. Here I pay about 250€ a year administration fee for N01 Daughter and the rest is free ( I obviously pay board and lodging) adn as a scholarship student she can eat in the University restaurant for 1€ per meal. To reply to Grace's original post, we don't do Valentines day gifts either but I used it as an excuse to buy her a bracelet which has "over the MooN" picked out in morse code...

got back from the UK late last night and today so far i'm into the third machine of washing, have removed roof box and bars from the car, washed the car and done the twins maths and French homework with them. weather is positively summery but looks like I won't get out on the bike if we all want to get back to work / School in good order tomorrow. Then I'll just need a weeks holiday to get over this one...

I had some pics but they were on my pooter which I didn't have with me in blighty and we didn't get home till late last night so too late. t's got to be Tango's new trumpet for me, though I like @Tym's pic, and I reckon @XTreme stopped where he did in order to pick up his topbox which just fell off in the road so it was unintentional and doesn't count.

Having spent yesterday shouting at the computer due to stoopid bloody paperwork issues, that is now sorted ( still a lot of unanswered questions but you cant submit the paperwork online until 48hrs before travelling so you discover their stupid website at that moment and they dont work weekends so you can’t ask anyone wtf they mean) our documents have apparently been validated, which is a bonus! today i am mostly winning the “Who’s got the biggest top box” competition and then having a snooze

You know it makes sense! let is know what you think after roding it for a while

that would be funny if it wasn't true

well I think it already voided his bowels.

they've all been turned into houses Pete. there's even part of this line further north that is converted into a "Velo rail" you hire a pedal powered 4 seater bicycle frame and pedal along the rails... well some tourists do anyway.

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.

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

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.

'course it's f'kin wet Tym, most of the country is under water... or would be if they weren't pumping it out all the time. freaking cold winters too, I know some guys who worked a coule of seasons in Lemmer on the hire fleets and they had really really cold winters.

I was then adopted at the age of 2 months so have no biological history at all, hence the reference to "bloodlines" in my earlier post. I could tell you the history of my adopted family back 3 or 4 generations but is that relevent? ( there's a philosophical question in there somewhere about biological and physiological history and a discussion on whether blood is really thicker than water, and what makes a perseon who they are, but this is probably not the ideal time or place )

Despite the first flights of cranes already heading back north, it' still defininately winter here. The sun was out yesterday afternoon and the temps were nearly up to double figures ( but not quite) so I donned all the thermal gear and went for a ride. I didn't get moving unill nearly 3pm so the sun was well past it's already low winter zenith and as I hate riding with the sun in my eyes I rode NW for a while keepin the sun on my left cheek, the idea being that as it sank lower I would turn NE to have it behind me and then ride South as it dropped below the tree line and so end up back at my departure point... "ish" As the sun was low there was very low the pics are all taken facing NW-ish and with looong shadows. by the time I got home at around 5,30pm the temperature had dropped to around 3c and I'd had the heated grips on for an hour already. still very bare trees I did manage to find an abandoned house for @XTreme, No I didn't go and explore it cos I couldn't be arsed. there were also one or two little lanes that lured me away from the chosen direction, mostly ending in a field or farm yard but otherwise I just follow them through and pick up my original heading at the next opportunity.

yeah, that and the French didn't want you. . you'll find the dutch very different from the spanish Pete, mostly very nice and open but they have some wierd relationships with money...

If by ancestry you mean "bloodlines"; I was born in the London bourough of Merton. That's all I've got.

Last minuit changes! Due to the risk of not being able to get back into france and the complications that would involve for the family ( not to mention to my wallet) we had decided that I would be going to the UK alone on the 21st, We decided to wait till the 11th before booking a crossing and cancelling the cottage reservatoion as this was the date the UK announced it was dropping the need for a covid test within 48 hrs of arrival and I wanted to see if France would reciprocate and drop the need for a negative test 48hrs before comig home. no announcement was made during the day yesterday so wifey cancelled here holiday time with work ( nice of them to allow that) and in the evening I sat down to make my travel plans, cancel the holiday cottage and reserve a crossing for just me. I was an the ferry booking page when Mrs MooN told me they'd just announced that France is dropping the requirement for fully vaccinated voyagers from an "orange" country to show proof of a negative test on arrival. So, back to "plan A" for us too ( insofar as we actually had a plan at all...) and it now looks like we will be travelling " En Famille" after all. @boboneleg you're going to need a bigger tin of biscuits mate.... Seriously though, it'd be great to say hi if you're around at all that week, I guess you're about an hour and a half from Witney, something like that. If you want to meet up somewhere for a beer / tea/ coffee, whatever. I'll drop you a PM from here soon as I know exactly what our plans are.

Oh we can judge them all we like Pete, you're just not allowed to SAY it.