Home is where the heart is …

John and I finally made it home to France.  Sadly, we’re only here till Friday, but it is good to be surrounded by one’s own stuff for a few days.  We’ve been talking a lot about last year’s trip.  It will be exactly one year tomorrow that I was last here, and walking in on Sunday evening was a bit like entering some sort of time warp.  There were all sorts of bits and pieces that related to the planning of our US trip, that we had left out when we packed the car.  It was a very odd feeling.

Anyway, seeing as so many of you will be at Del Rhea’s, do send everyone our best.

B x

Still Out There

Hi Everyone,

Been awhile since I’ve communicated, but since Brigid made the website change, I simply haven’t been able to log in. First wouldn’t recognize my password, tried unsuccessfully to change it on multipe occasions, but not until several more attempts today did I succeed. Beginning to wonder if the internet gods have been trying to thwart me. In any event, things have been somewhat uneventful in the midwest (except for the arrival of my 5th grandchild 3 weeks back – and Leah looks like the last). However, it finally looks like summer has arrived. Been putting in breakin miles on my new Electric Glide Ultra Limited (yep still a Harley man). The old one just wasn’t the same after the Alaska trip- at least that was the excuse I gave my wife.
Looking forward to hitting the road again, but it has to be scheduled around my annual fishing trip to Canada and several family vacations. This retirement thing is sure a bitch!! Hope everything is well with all members of the group and I look forward to being able once again to communicate with you all on this site.

Bill

RIP Elizabeth de Stroumillo

Who?

Elizabeth de Stroumillo, “Minky”, was a pioneering travel journalist and the mother of my best friend at school. She died in March, aged 83, as a result of being knocked off her scooter!  She and her sculptor husband, Phil Turner, took me in shortly after my father died, when I first moved to London.  They taught me the ways of the world and treated me as one of their own.  For this alone, I would be forever in their debt.

However, I can also tell you that without them, you, my friends, would never have met me and John. Minky and Phil were both keen scooter riders and it was they, to my own parents’ joint horror, who suggested that I should buy my first 50cc moped …  From these modest beginnings, a biker was born. RIP Minky.