February 19th – Do you wanna dance?

If you put “Knockliscrane” into Microsoft’s spell checker you get “knocking shop”. Best we add our rental address to the computer’s dictionary, to avoid any awkward misunderstandings …

The build is currently being hampered by the weather, but John and I have been far from idle. Aside from route planning and writing (and rewriting) press releases for the Moscow ride, we have planned our new kitchen, researched important stuff like satellite television and home movie systems, started golf lessons, learned to make soda bread and joined two dance classes.

They are big into social dancing here in Ireland, at least in Co. Clare they are. Not just “dad dancing” , i.e. rhythmless swaying, accompanied by extravagant hand gestures while miming to the lyrics. I mean proper ballroom dancing: foxtrots, waltzes, quicksteps, and the like. Dances of which I am embarrassingly ignorant. Strictly … two left feet!  John, at least, remembers learning a waltz in his youth, and although slightly less orangutan-like in its execution than his efforts in the disco … oobee doo, hoopdeewee, I wanna be like yoo-hoo-hoo, it is still less than elegant.

To be unable to dance is not only a social handicap but can, I have discovered, prove physically hazardous. Try explaining that you can’t to a man who has spent the last four days at a wedding, who has lost the power of speech and hearing, and whose only hope of staying awake is to keep moving. No such word!

Thus, John and I spent an enjoyable Wednesday evening being taught Jive at extremely grand Woodstock Hotel and Country Club in Ennis.

I said two dance classes, didn’t I.

We came away from Wednesday’s class, determined to practice what we had learned at home. And we might have done, had we not confused matters by signing up for a Set dancing class at the local church hall.

Equal in popularity to the foxtrot and the waltz, around here, is the traditional Irish Set dance. Sets are a bit like Scottish reels but, in my experience, far more likely to be seen in pubs and at parties throughout the year.

It was a mixed ability group but, as our teacher, Tom, said, there wasn’t much to the steps – as long as you got them right – and you could learn the figures out of a book. Well, that’s the theory anyway. Women out numbered men 4 to 1, so two or three of the women were conscripted to dance as men. It’s actually quite a skill – being able to mirror the movements of your partner if you are used to being the female half of the couple!

So off we went. In twos to start with: advance, retire, step left, step right …easy. Much easier than the Jive anyway. I could get the hang of this …

Inspector ClouseauUnfortunately, I had only just got the hang of this, when Tom (a man whose teeth bear an uncanny resemblance to Peter Sellers’ Hunchback of Notre Dame),  started arranging couples in the middle of the room for the “first figure”. Uh?! The music started and, watching intently, yes, I could still make out the steps we had just practiced. Only we hadn’t been warned that we would need to move around the room with our partners – at speed! At this point it helps to know your right from your left and the difference between clockwise and anti-clockwise. It also helps to have a smaller room (John) and shorter legs (me) … Then came the second figure.

“You’ve picked a nice tempo, Tom”, commented the woman next to me, as I was recovering my balance, “nice and easy …”!!! Having danced several of these practice figures, I learned two things. First, don’t look at your feet, or you will eventually fall over them; and, second, bring a bottle of water with you.

So, tell me, alcohol and dancing … how does that work?!

February 6th – trailer for sale or rent …

I’ve had Roger Miller’s tune in my head since Friday last.

Since we sold our London house in October, we haven’t been settled anywhere for more than three weeks … and mightly tiring all this travelling is getting. I haven’t exactly helped matters by buying a second motorcycle: a 2002 BMW R1150GS, the “Yellow Peril”.  However, it gave John the excuse he needed to buy a big multi-purpose trailer … I need to have the new bike inspected by the DRIRE (déjà vu?) before it can be registered in France, and we need to get the car and all three bikes over to Ireland in May, prior to our wee Russian trip. Besides which, a trailer will probably be handy if I ever make good on my threat to buy a Harley!

We left France on 20th January. John was determined that we didn’t need to use the roof box. The argument was logical. We were picking up a trailer in Birmingham, en route to Ireland, so would have so much more space next time. But, by the time I had loaded up various kitchen items, a suitcase full of linen, the cats, and a larger than average quantity of cheap booze from Spain, we had run out of room for clothes … So we departed with roof box: the car low on springs and heavy on fuel.

After a week in the UK, it was time to leave for Ireland. The original plan was for JR to pick up the cats from Leafy Oak and for him to drive, and for me to ride the Yellow Peril, up to Waltham St. Lawrence for a meeting to discuss our Moscow ride … then drive/ride from there to Birmingham to pick up the trailer. Sadly, due to unforeseen circumstances, we ended up attending the funeral of one of John’s ex-colleagues* instead. I donned a reasonably smart knee-length black woollen coat, and hoped that no one would notice my m/c leathers underneath.

Anyway, we left Hanwell about 2pm …

Phoenix Trailers closes early on Fridays, so the owner had kindly suggested that we pick the trailer up from his home in Bridgnorth. We arrived at about 5pm, just as it was getting dark … The temperature on the way up had varied between -1C and +2C. I was bloody freezing!

Before we could hitch up the trailer, John had to fit the removeable towbar. So I parked on the pavement with the bike’s newly-fitted French headlight trained on his rear bumper. The towbar is conveniently stowed in the spare wheel, which is neatly located under the carpet in the boot … which was full. So we had to unload it.

The trailer salesman looked on bemused as John fitted the phallic-looking towbar in place and tried to lock it. He pushed and pulled. He jogged it up and down. He took it out and gave it another go. No dice. “Trailerman John” went back inside and fetched a hammer. John gave the tow bar a smart tap and the head of the hammer fell off. He examined the locking mechanism, and tried again but it became perfectly clear to the assembled audience, that for all the wriggling, jiggling and lubrication it was definitely “not tonight Josephine” for the trailer.

John’s mood was not helped by my suggestion that we would not, in fact, be able to fit more than one motorbike on the 9’ x 4’ trailer anyway. “It’s up to you”, he said, “but do you really want to be riding all the way to Co. Clare in this weather?” He was right. I didn’t. At this point, Trailerman reappears with a tape measure. “Are you able to remove your screen and wing mirrors?” he said, “That bike is too tall for the trailer as it is”. It was obvious. The multi-purpose trailer comes with rails to support a tarpauline cover, and the 1150 enduro was much too tall to pass under them. This particular problem was soon remedied by removing the rails. However, with John no closer to fitting the towbar, we agreed that the problem would probably be easier to solve in daylight, and we might as well to find a hotel for the night. Luckily for me, there was a pet-friendly Travelodge in Wolverhampton: twelve cold, dark, miles away. We rebooked our 8.20am ferry and reloaded the boot.

In the morning, we were delighted to find a Skoda dealer … back in Bridgnorth. The area is popular with bikers and it was easy to see why. It was quite sunny, and the twisty and undulating roads through the frosty countryside actually made for quite a pleasant ride. Gratifyingly, the problem with the towbar wasn’t just us being cackhanded. The guys had to put the car up on the hoist to clean rust out of the receiving mechanism.

Over a curry and a beer the previous evening, John and I had agreed that the multi-purpose trailer was a waste of money if we were unable to use it for more than one bike. But Trailerman John was a decent fellow and offered to swap it for a big 3-bike trailer and refund the difference. “You have straps, don’t you?” he asked.

The bike trailers were not stored at his factory, but at a remote farm about fifteen minutes away. Trailerman led the way, followed by John in the car and me on the bike. It was Saturday morning, and he wasn’t meant to be at work. Once he was sure we were satisfied with the three bike trailer, he made his excuses and left us to hitch it up and load the bike … something we have never had to do alone before. But there’s a first time for everything.

We lined the bike up with the steel ramp and John managed to operate the throttle and clutch efficiently, while keeping the wheels straight. The process was actually far simpler than we had feared it might be. The front wheel lodged neatly in the metal hoop at the front of the trailer and John was able to easily hold the bike upright until I strapped it down.

Unfortunately, the straps were in a side pocket of the boot, so he had to wait while I unloaded it again …

We had two sorts of straps: two inch-wide red ones and two longer two-inch wide black ones. Unfortunately, the red ones were too short and the black ones, aside from being ridiculously long, had no ratchet system. In other words, both were completely useless.

So there we were, on a farm in the middle of nowhere, now running late for the 1.50pm ferry, with a bike on a trailer that we couldn’t secure. The best we could do was to unhitch the trailer and lock the bike up while we went to find some suitable straps. Getting the bike off the trailer was a piece of cake – except that the trailer was no longer attached to the car, so it tipped violently as the weight of the bike took over. No damage was done other than to John’s underpants.

Now all we had to do was repack the boot …

I got in the car and we drove to Phoenix Trailers’ factory in Deuxhill where we knew that Trailerman John had had an appointment. When we got there it was locked up and deserted but, before we had time to use the phone, yer man had pulled up behind us. “I saw you drive through Bridgnorth without the trailer, so I knew you must have had some sort of problem”, he said. He opened up his store and sold us 8 beautiful two-piece straps with hooks on the ends: purpose-made for bikes, four for my bike and four for John’s. Then he was gone again.

I looked at John. “Did you take a note of where that farm was?” I said. John looked momentarily aghast. In all the panic, neither of us had a clue even what the name of the village was. We could, conceivably, get completely lost trying to find our way back to the bike and trailer.

In fact, it is a testament to the beauty of the area, that we were able, quite easily, to retrace our steps using various noteworthy buildings and views as waypoints. And, once reunited with the bike and trailer, we quickly loaded up and got underway. The next ferry was at 9.30pm.

We eventually arrived home in Co. Clare at 5.30am last Sunday.

*RIP Garath Davies. Remembered for his quick wit and one-liners, I’m sure he would have found something apt to say about our trailer saga.

“No good deed ever goes unpunished”

This was the motto of a former boss of mine: a successful marine arbitrator with fingers in all sorts of other business pies, whose dubious associates and disastrous home life never failed to add a touch of levity to a dull day in the office.

Over the next few months, I expect this site might take on a new usefulness to Roynie and myself – as a pressure valve! Comment if you like, but sometimes it is just helpful to have a place to say the things you want to but, for one reason or another, cannot. The elephant in the room, if you like.

We  have become involved in a charity ride next summer.  There are, presently, just three riders and we each have a personal involvement with the charity, through a friend or family member. We also have the potential participation of a certain VIP, about whom I can say little (mainly because he may yet decide not to ride with us), but for whom Roynie and Jim (not “our” Jim, before you ask) are having to dust off their Sunday suits for a posh meeting in London.

The VIP – and the ride – are my fault.  The result of fools rushing in where angels fear to tread.  One day I got an email from my cousin suggesting that we might like to participate in a 6,500 mile round trip from Scotland to Russia and back and, without giving it much further thought, I said “yes”.  Potential costly mistake one. Then I mentioned it to a fellow motorcycle fanatic at our local sailing club and he suggested that said personality enjoys the odd boys’ bike trip.  Anyway, having sent him an email via a mutual friend, we were slightly relieved when he said “no”, and then slightly worried to receive a second email response, a few days later, saying “may be”. Potential mistake two. He doesn’t have a bike of his own so, while making sponsorship overtures to a well-known British manufacturer, in the meantime I have acquired an extra bike: a bright yellow, 2002, BMW R1150GS. Costly mistake three? I truly hope not.

The organiser, Jim, is a great guy.  He is a retired engineer with absolutely no experience of motorcycle touring at all and his longest ride to date has been about 400 miles from his Berkshire village to Scotland.  His chosen bike is a BMW F800ST (a sports bike). But, as John and I well know, lack of experience and unsuitable bikes are no barrier to adventure.  (Those of you who rode with us in 2001 will remember that the Triumph Tiger was John’s first bike, and previously he had only ridden about 300 miles in total on mine.) Unfortunately, having no experience of a ride of this distance/duration, and clearly having been watching too much TV, he decided we needed a support vehicle: a mobile “garage” in the form of a modified horse box.

Thankfully, I doubt there will ever be any need to vent about interpersonal issues on this trip.  However, the horse box is a different matter. And it is precisely because Jim has taken such a pride in doing it up and finding a driver to accompany us across fourteen international borders, that we find ourselves unable to suggest that his mobile garage might be a teensy-weensy bit of a liability.

The makings of a book?  May be.  Anyway, if you are of a masochistic nature and have a hankering to visit Europe, you could always link up with us (as Len has promised to do) somewhere along the trail. It might be a laugh.

If you want to know more about the mission or even donate to the cause, click here to have a look at our official website.

November 7th – Home is where the craic* is

I’m writing again. This is a good thing – for me if not for you! After months of worry over the sale of our house in London, I rather lost the motivation. It wasn’t that blog-worthy stories didn’t occur, it was simply that any flashes of inspiration seemed to vanish as quickly as they had appeared. Anyway, a lot of what I wanted to write was just so damn depressing that no one would have wanted to read it. But that’s all in the past. Now we’re in Ireland.

Ireland? To bring you up to speed, one of the incentives for selling up in London (quite apart from not having the tedium of repairing damage caused by our charming, but careless, young tenants), was to use some of the equity to rebuild John’s family home in the West of Ireland. This has been a dream of ours since he and Mike bought back the ruined farmhouse from the forestry company in 1998. Why the farm was sold in the first place or how the house came to be destroyed by fire, makes for an interesting story in itself, but it would be too long in the telling. Suffice to say that John’s father passed away happy in the knowledge that his childhood home would be rebuilt and that the “new” flagstones, laid by John’s grandfather during the 60’s, might once again ring with the sound of music and laughter.

People around here remember the flagstones. They were the best in the neighbourhood and perfect for dancing.

The ruin is a sad sight now. One gable end was deliberately pushed in shortly after the fire and, as the years passed, wind and weather have gradually taken their toll on the weakened structure. Brambles and rushes have now overwhelmed what remains of the internal walls and chimney breast.

Rebuilding was never a realistic option. The farmhouse had a traditional layout consisting of a large central living room in which all cooking and entertaining took place, a large bedroom at one end, and two smaller ones at the other (one of which was also used to store salt pork, and sides of bacon hung from the ceiling). John remembers Aunt Gret cooking in a cauldron or on a bakestone over an open fire. There was no bathroom. Water for was brought up from a well each day and the surrounding fields served as a latrine. Even so, the family home is remembered for its craic.

The original house was, as our architect put it, a tad on the tidy side. Too small for modern-day living. In any event, planning regulations did not allow us to use the old footprint, as it was too close to the boundary. So we designed ourselves a spacious new three bedroom bungalow. The old cow cabin and cart shed together provided enough stone to level the site and, weather permitting, the foundations should go in this week. And, yes, we do hope to salvage those flagstones for our new living room.

In the meantime, John and I have a house-worth of furniture on our hands. Contemplating the cost of a year or so’s storage in the UK, coupled with a few weeks’ tourist accommodation, we decided it made economic sense to rent a house locally for the duration of the build. And here we are.

Having lived like a nomad out of suitcases for the last few weeks, I found myself having a Maureen O’Hara moment.  No sooner had John turned the key in the front door, than I was complaining that I wanted “me tings about me”*. In particular, having set off the smoke alarm twice cooking breakfast on Saturday, I needed my own pots and pans. A functioning washing machine would be a bonus too, along with an address …

Yes, it’s true. We have no idea of our address or, indeed, whether this house actually has one. Quite possibly, it doesn’t. Our building site is known locally as “Johnny Paddy’s”. Before the old house came to John, it belonged to his uncle, Johnny. So why “Johnny Paddy”? Rural Ireland was, until recently, populated by enormous families (John’s father had 16 siblings, 13 of whom survived into adulthood). Over the centuries, cousins have necessarily married cousins, albeit distant ones, and local surnames proliferated, with many instances of the same surname appearing in both sides of a family tree. John, of course, is a popular boys’ name. Since roads and houses didn’t have names, in order that the postman could differentiate between men of the same name that lived locally, it was customary to add the father’s name, in this case Pat or Paddy, John’s grandfather. Hence, “Johnny Paddy’s”. Perfectly logical. Even today, it isn’t necessary for a house to have a name. A friend of ours routinely found his mail on the front seat of his (unlocked) Volvo.

* Craic is an Irish term variously translated as fun, entertainment or gossip, depending on the context.
* From the 1952 film, “The Quiet Man”, where the plot revolves around the refusal of O’Hara’s “brother” to hand over a dowry of furniture and money, having discovered that he has been duped into allowing her to marry John Wayne.

September 12th – Under pressure …

“Before” (old kitchen)If love means never having to say you’re sorry, fear is having an eastern European demolishing the back wall of your otherwise comfortable and well-insulated house with a Kango hammer. We’ve got the builders in …

Costa’s guys have only been here a week and, already, I am lamenting the fact that they don’t flush and leave the seat up, and the house is full of plaster dust. The old kitchen units are on eBay and John and I have retreated to the first floor of our Fulham house: washing up in the bath and cooking on two rings in the “living room”: previously the front bedroom. It is almost as if we have entered a time warp and stepped back 14 years!

Actually, I am not sure whether our current conditions are better or worse than when we first bought the freehold and started to convert the two flats back into a house. At least we are only dealing with one room this time, even if the room in question comprises half the ground floor. Back in the day, we stripped out the entire first floor: ceilings, walls, everything in fact, except one bedroom. I have fond memories (not) of arriving home from work and finding John and Bob Masterton looking like a pair of coal miners and the entire house being coated in a fine film of dust from the lathe and plaster. And here we are 14 years later doing the same thing. “It’s what you two do …”, commented John’s exasperated daughter.“After!” (Work in progress)

The plumbing problems are reversed. Now instead of having no water on the first floor, we have no water on the ground floor, meaning many tedious treks upstairs for the plasterer and much ill-humoured hoovering for me. It also means weekly trips to the launderette – from whence I write, with a row of churning machines for entertainment. Every now and then I get a wave from a very large pair of purple knickers (not mine … or John’s either, before you ask) twirling around in the machine opposite!

I did, however, have a complete sense of humour meltdown over our clean linen, after dust funnelled up into the airing cupboard from downstairs. So I left it for a service wash with the Freddie Mercury look-alike who runs the launderette.

All together now, “I want to break free …”!

I am perfectly sure Mum also wants to break free. She has, and I hesitate as I write this, made a sustained improvement over the last two weeks or so. The CT scans don’t show much change, but her infection markers have been down and her temperature has been more normal. Gradually she is regaining her strength.

Nice “Dr Tim” says that Mum’s progress is remarkable, considering her age. I hadn’t previously taken in that Critical Illness Neuropathy can take 6 months to recover from. So the fact that Mum can smile, wave, clap and make thumbs up signs is very encouraging.

Mum still cannot talk as the plumbing for the ventilator bypasses her voicebox. However, the hoses are now only connected at night. During the day Mum is doing all the breathing work herself with minimal support from an oxygen mask slung loosely over the trachy pipe. A bonus of this arrangement, is that the nurses can wheel her up to the roof terrace, swathed in sheets and blankets, for a dose of early autumn sunshine … which reminds me, I must go and look for a pair of sunglasses.

Homeward bound

It is now over a year since we left you all and flew back to London from Chicago.  My mum is doing great – cooking her own breakfast and pruning the roses in her dressing gown before her “carers” arrive to help her wash and dress and make her bed.  Not that she would ever say so, but John and I are definitely surplus to requirement.  Just as well, as it looks as though we may have sold our London house.  (Third time lucky?  Two previous offers have fallen through … Crossed fingers and prayers to St. Jude please.)

In preparation  for our house move, we are bringing the bikes back home to France.  It is the first long ride we have had since last summer.  Tonight I am writing from Limoges (if you stuck a pin in the middle of a map of France, you wouldn’t be far off).  John is snoring beside me.

We had intended to make it back to Montréjeau tonight, but the itinerary was fecked before we started.  We stayed last night with John’s mum, Betty, as it was easier to get to Dover from Coulsdon than from the Isle of Wight, for a cheap ferry crossing to Calais.  We were booked on an 8.15am ferry, which we could have made easily by leaving at 6.30am.  Unfortunately, Betty’s snoring woke us at 4am.  Having tossed and turned a bit, I got up and made a cup of tea for us both.  By the time we had drunk it, it was 4.30am and John had a brilliant idea, “Let’s leave now!”  It is a ten and a half hour drive from Calais to Montréjeau and, if we had caught an early ferry, we could have made it to our local auberge at about 9pm, in time for a pizza.  But there was no “early” ferry, so we just sat nursing a large coffee and a bacon roll until it was time to embark.

If we had ridden on, we could probably have made Montréjeau by midnight, but the auberge would have been closed.  As it was, after 400 miles, we started to flag at Orléans and decided to have a decent meal and call it a day at Limoges. We booked into a B&B Motel (€45 per night + breakfast) and had a nice bit of rump steak at the Courtepaille restaurant next door.  Slightly worryingly, it took a second bottle of vin de pays for John to notice that we could have paid €37 for the room, if we could have found a third person to share it with us …

The mind boggles. 

Good night.