Dalesman Rally 2011 ( one for the bikers)

OK, for the few bikers who still read this blog, here are a few pics from last weeks rally. Held at Leyburn in the Yorkshire Dales and organised by the Dean Vally MCC. Leyburn is a very pleasent market town, quiet and fairly sedate, popular with the tourists.







with a few pubs and restaurants including the Sandpiper where we had an excellent meal on the Saturday night.

As for the bikes.....there were old ones, newer ones







some with sidecars








Trikes with tiny sleeping trailers.






In the next field there stood the remains of a tree that had possibly been hit by lightning.



and wandering round the site early on the Saturday morning... a lone spinner still working on her Tour de Fleece challenge.





Have a great weekend, whatever you may be doing :-)

Motoguzzi lovers.

HI, just a short note to say hi to anyone wandering over from the guzzi forum where the chat has been about hand knitted jumpers :-) I'm not on the forum as haven't belonged to the guzzi club for around 14 years but we still have the Cali, much loved and used for mainly holidays  and long distance rallies.

Lindisfarne Trip

1. lindisfarne causeway, 2. lindisfarne Priory 04, 3. lindisfarne Priory 03, 4. lindisfarne Priory 05, 5. Lindisfarne knotwork 03, 6. lindisfarne Medieval style 01, 7. lindisfarne knotwork 001, 8. lindisfarne Priory 01, 9. lindisfarne 01, 10. lindisfarne medieval style 03, 11. lindisfarne causeway 01, 12. lindisfarne knotwork 05

Typical, the hottest weekend of the year and we travel 200 mile to be in the sea mist , it was worth it though. We had planned to visit several of the landmarks for the round britain rally on the way up but only managed two as we were late setting off due to Ian having an interview Friday morning. The hotel had been prebooked, great rooms, pub food, TV (exciting for us non TV folks)
After breakfast on Saturday we walked down to the causeway to watch the tide recede then went back to fetch the bike to drive over. Decided to visit the Priory and leave the castle until we can return and stay for a few days on the island.
Medieval story tellers, musicians,swordsman and even a lovely lady working with natural dyes kept us entertained.

We took time later in the day to catch up with some more landmarks, two of which I will blog about in more detail once the challenge has finished in October.

The only drawback to the weekend was that the bike developed and oil leak so we had to nurse her gently home and hope that all is fixable before our next long trip.This means that I will miss this weekends rally in Essex but will have a little more time to play with my new camera and get the embellisher out of its box at long last.

Taster for Marie

We have a house guest so blogging has been temporarily suspended but here is a taster for Marie of zquilts.





Our Journey to Lindisfarne Priory

Yes, whilst the rest of the country had sun, we had cloud and mist.

(added later)
OK, I confess, that is sea water on the road!! we had to wait for the tide to go out before we could ride to the island!!

Why does it always rain in Cornwall?

For the last 11 years we have attended the annual Drake MCC 'Summer Rally' eventually becoming part of this small and friendly club. The first year we went, the sun came out and shone all weekend not to be seen again until last year. Well maybe I exaggerate a little but we have had more than our fair share of riding back in heavy rain from just off the campsite to within a few miles from Nottingham ( 270 miles)

This year I had my fingers crossed but the rain started about 60 mile from home on Thursday and was more on than off until Sunday morning! Maybe it's time to trade in the bike for a boat:)

We made it down to the site in time to help put up the marque, well Ian helped whilst I played at putting up our tent. We managed to bag two Round Britain Rally landmarks on the way down. At one of the them, the old gentleman living opposite the landmark came out and offered to take Ians photo. I think he is going to have a lively summer as there are several hundred bikes competing this year and I suspect he will be offering to photograph each one.


On Friday we rode round in the rain chasing a few more landmarks which included going on a ferry, our bike loves ferries, always behaves herself. This is crossing the estuary at Fowey.



This is a sneaky shot us both of us, yes at long last you can see what we look like. This is what the best dressed bikers are wearing this summer in the UK- thermals, leathers and waterproofs- no wonder I look like the Michelin man!! The small person with us is Rufus, a fellow RBR contestant who we met up with en route.

M C Dwylefunkers Rally

We eventually found the rally site after turning left at the wrong duck pond and having to turn round after some very nice people told us where we should have been. The pub hosting the rally (The Lower Lode Inn)dates from the 15th centuary and has been a family run pub since 1590 and was damaged in the floods of 2007 when the river broke its banks and submerged 2 or 3 bikes that were parked up, one was last seen with just its mirrors sticking out from the flood water and the caravans simply floated and tipped over. It was a quiet, civilized do with around 50 people attending on bikes and trikes, camping on the river bank along with the local geese.

These two sculptures were spotted on the river bank outside the pub.

The pub ( Good food and very good breakfast-thank you)

Aftermath of the 2007 floods


5.30 this morning! nice and peaceful

Weekend Away

The weathers getting better so the wee beastie was wheeled out for her first rally of the year ( Ian has been using the BM up till now) Minor problem was that she would not start but with a bit of encouragement in the form of a rubber mallet the problem was solved for the time being but a new starter motor will be needed before we go back to France and Italy.
We headed down to a rally near Tewkesbury taking in four landmarks for the Round Britain Rally which I will be able to show you later in the year once the challenge has finished. in the mean time, here are some pretty houses and a pub snapped on route.

This one is for BBC Radio Four fans, The Old Bull at Inkberrow, better known as the Bull in Ambridge in the long running Radio Four series The Archers.

These rather spooky images come from just outside one of the landmarks at Great Malvern

Take it further challenge

Well, I sat and thought about it, finally decided to go with the first name to come into my mind, although this was probably influenced by sitting staring at the prayer flags at the bottom of the garden!!. Anyway, I chose the Dalai Lama as a starting point and went on to scribble words and ideas whilst surrounding myself with books about Tibet. I now have a starting point a rough idea of where I am heading but I have still to decide size, maybe A4 as sometimes postcard is a bit small.


Anyway, whilst we are on such an eastern subject, can anyone guess this location? Answer in a few days

Normal service will resume

............as soon as possible, still raiding the tissue box, hot drink at the ready. Here's a design idea from one of my photos,

back with the bikes, well in this case quads at the sand racing. There must be some way of working with this, will think about whilst tucked up watching a film this afternoon.

It was a wild, wet, windy day

and we were going to the Christmas Fair at Lincoln to finish the shopping. I had intended to take photos but we got so wet that we gave up and came home. However, we did take time out to visit Italia Moto to sort out a few spares etc for our bike. So here are a couple of photos of our favourite bike shop who always do a great job for us.




Now which Ducati do I fancy??

Return of Biker Ted

Update on the bike, she is now safely installed in our garage once more although there are still some problems to be sorted. We were very relieved to see that Biker Ted survived his extended holiday. He has been resident on this bike since our first trip to Norway in 1997 and we made the decision to leave him in France to guard the bike in our absence.

Although he is looking slightly smoke damaged these days!!

It was too good to last.......................................

View from the top of Col de la Bonnette

Unfortunately on the way back to the hotel, the charging light came on. So Ian phoned the recovery service who picked up the bike on Sunday to take it to the dealer for repairs

Monday- received phone call to say the shop was closed for the day. Tuesday received call to say they were looking at it.

Wednesday received call to collect the bike. Taxi supplied by recovery company Wednesday afternoon. Bike pronounced ok, no problem other than loose wire.
100 mile later we were clipped by a car on the motorway, stayed on bike, scratched pannier but no serious injury.

Thursday morning travelled a further 100 mile before rectifier/ regulator burnt out big time, so much for the repair!! Recovery service supplied hire car on Friday for 550 mile dash back to Calais

Hopefully the damage is confined to this, anyway bike is still in France awaiting transport to Italia Moto at Lincoln for inspection and repair. The French bike shop will be hearing from us when we have the full report.

The road to the sun

riding the Col du Galibier, France

stop to admire the scenery

stop off at Cannes to top up the suntan

Try and find the sun.

As you can see, the weather was not what we were wanting. The heavy rain in Austria and Switzerland has fallen as snow on the passes and our idea of riding the Grossglockner Strasse in Austria were abandoned after we found out how much snow had fallen there. Although the snow would probably clear after a few days, we decided to head towards the south of France were the roads were still twisty but somewhat warmer.

Back safe and sound (just)

unfortunately these photos have loaded in the wrong order! anyway this is the Grimselpass in Switzerland

Summer Holiday???

but beautiful to look at

Ian finds a snow drift

Yes, I was there, HONEST, just don't like being in front of the camera!

lake at Morzine, France

Packing the bikes for the next leg of the journey, Paris for Andy and Elaine, Switzerland for ourselves

Mountains overlooking Interlaken