Riding

Went out with Beds Road today, felt shockingly slow after a few weeks of illness.  I spose I have to build up to it...  Got home and was overcome with pro-action.  I turns out that our lawn is too far gone.  A shame, but it ain't going to be me who fixes it.  Car is running well, 42mpg on the last 500 mile tank.  Nice!

Snow!

We have snow.  Ace.

Good News!

Heard this morning that my thesis has been accepted for publication, which means I can officially call myself a Dr. If I wanted to, which I don't. Good though, one more thing that I don't have to stress about any more. Bring on the driving test! - Update - I heard this evening that my test, which was scheduled for tomorrow morning, has been cancelled due to examiner illness. Talk about a let-down. :-((

Driving Test

All booked and very soon.  More info afterwards, including some photos of my car and some thoughts on travel plans for the coming year.  All very exciting.

Crufts +

A shiba inu was in the running for the final, best-in-show crufts contest.  Very cute, but far too many doggy obsessive types on there for my liking.  After a while it all starts to get a bit creepy.

My bikes are both now in need of some serious TLC.  The BMW, as well as being caked in road cack, started leaking oil from the rear shock last week.  That might explain the sligtly pogo-ey handling of late.  I was beginning to think I'd lost the knack.

Oddly, the left-hand shoulder of the front tyre is also completely knackered, strange becauase that's the non-roundabout side.  Hmmm.

Economy

My new car averaged 50mpg over the last 450 miles.  Yippee!  That's bike type economy from an estate car!  Now I just need to start running 50p / litre biodiesel....

New Route!

Have found a new way to work which is much more entertaining, using country roads with sweeping bends.  Only problem is that the roads in question were engineered for horses and carts (possibly), so cambers are all wrong, corner radii change half way round and there are big bumps and holes on the apexes!  I thought I was doing OK until a local hero shot past me yesterday, scraping footpegs and bits of chassis.  Good luck to him, as long as it's not me who has to scrape him up! Bike looks filthy, with mis-matched wheels and no bellypan :-((

Holiday Vid Compilation

More to come...

Have a look at the photo gallery, specifically in the Travel > Holidays > Maroc 08 section.  Some pics in there from my recent holiday.  We were lucky enough to meet the Renault 4L Rallye, and saw ~1000 of the little things burning around the countryside.  Was also very impressed by the 14 year-old Toyota HiLux Surf we used for piste-bashing.  Awesome.  I am planning on a YouTube vid soon.