Paris, Valentines, Romance, a weekend in bed…
Sounds great (or gross if you’re my kids reading this) but the lure of the most romantic city on earth (especially if you like dog poo), and a valentines / birthday combo weekend was just too much to resist so I managed to hurt my back and spent large portions of the weekend unable to move for all the wrong reasons! It wasn’t quite as bad as it seemed as I was able to cycle, but not walk more than about 10 paces, actually not all bad – no shopping for me! So we confined our visit to cycling around Paris carefully watching the road for the potholes (many roads are broken...
Read MoreCutting it close…
Well, it’s not exactly cutting it close as when we got home last year we aimed to be away again by January 2nd, but as our plans always seem to be disrupted by one thing or another getting away on February 11th isn’t too bad for us really. And we were actually cutting it close on departure day as when we woke up this morning we were still waiting a replacement door lock in the post and a new wheel to arrive at the garage! Nothing essential you understand. But they all arrived and by 5pm we were trundling along the A14 in rush hour on our way towards Dover in a roundabout sort of...
Read MoreShabby shic, canal du Windy/muddy/Midi
Since we arrived on the south coast of France in September we’ve been gradually cycling the Canal Du Midi (though it might better be described as the Canal du Muddy, or bumpy or windy in different places) from Sete to Toulouse. We’ve been waiting to finish the canal for weeks now and then yesterday, almost like waiting for a London bus, we managed to finish 3 canals in one day! Actually as we’ve had to cycle both ways we completed the Midi both ways in one day and the tiny Canal Du Brienne that connects the midi to the Garonne river as well. After all the wonderful...
Read More“Hotel Taffy”
Taffy has turned somewhat into a mobile hotel and restaurant over the last few weeks as first we had Lewis come to stay, then met up with Mike and Ali and finally Jacques and Mandy. It’s been fantastic seeing them all and the highlight surely had to be Lewis flying over the handle bars of his bike into a bush as he either lost control of his bike or nobly jumped off the bike to avoid crashing into Linda depending on who tells the story! He was great fun to be with and we all sampled various beers – even Jon who hates them – and Lewis worked his way through a few of the...
Read MoreHealth n Safety, my Arse!
Cycling around Holland in the sun is much like being in a real life St Trinians holiday camp. If there’s a canal then there’s dozens of kids swimming unsupervised from age 6 or 7 up, kids desperately trying to touch the side of passing 3000 tonne ships by belly boarding at them sideways like torpedoes and if there’s a bridge over the canal then the kids are jumping off it playing their own version of pooh sticks scaring the hell out of the passing holiday cruisers. In the boats the kids stand and lie about and even get towed behind them clinging on to a rope, and sometimes...
Read MoreOf Cricket, Americans and God
Holland are one of the better non test match playing teams and Ireland are the best. As they were due to play an international in Amstelveen we headed north to just outside Amsterdam to have a day with our feet up, drinking wine and commenting “Good shot old chap” in between naps and sandwiches. The game itself was entertaining – and live on the Internet with a full crew of cameramen etc and live commentary, the around 100 spectators barely outnumbered the ICC Officials and TV crew. Ireland eventually won comfortably and we returned to taffy via a lovely cycle through the...
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