More running around

I left England a very happy man at the end of June.

I had the opportunity to show my films four times, in Dorchester, Wales, Stroud and at Horizons Unlimited in Ripley, and they seem to have passed the test.

The audiences were packed, and tried very hard to make me believe they were enjoying themselves, so I shall pursue this format and make more films of later sections of the two journeys. The format seems to work well, and eventually I suppose it will adapt easily to DVD.

Just a matter of time.
Time? I wish I could get more of that stuff. I wonder who makes it.

With Catherine Germillac at Concarneau in Brittany

Catherine Germillac travelled very widely on her Yamaha in the nineties. She is a lovely, vivacious and talented girl, with a terrific zest for life, and I was very sad to hear a year ago that she was suffering from a quite crippling condition in her hands and one foot.

Hardly able to walk, or write, let alone ride a bike, I thought she must be going through hell, but I was unable to do more than send messages of condolence until now.
Well, I found her at last in Brittany in a town called Concarneau, which is just one of those really beautiful old fishing ports that line the coast.

More of Concarneau in Brittany

To my delight (and chagrin) I discovered that she had all but recovered from her troubles without my help. We had two lovely days, walking the coastline and visiting friends and, thanks to a friendly fisherman, it finished with an astounding all-day meal, feeding on just about every creature that can be found in the sea.

There were crabs, and whelks, and winkles and shrimps and langoustines and herring and anchovies and, most prized of all, what are called “sea spiders” but are actually a small version of the King Crab or the Chilean Centolla.
To add to our enormous good fortune we discovered that a local supermarket, called Super U, had a shelf of wine from Argentina called La Bienvenida, which was as good as the finest Bordeaux and only cost 5.5 Euros.

From Brittany I rode across France to spend a day with Bruno (whom you might remember from Jupiter’s Travels and Riding High). Then I went to the dentist in Stuttgart (Ha. Beat that!) and visited more friends near Munich and then spent a couple of days with Manfred Waffender near Frankfurt, and then to Dirk Erker in Duisburg, and . . . well, with so many friends to visit, no wonder I run out of time.

I’m in Ukraine now, recovering from all that running around.
The ride through Poland was a bit hairy, because I was waiting for my chain to break at any moment. It was making an awful racket, and to add to my discomfort my mobile phone died on me, thanks to the obscure and perverse antics of the German version of O2.

Then I discovered a couple of chain links that seemed to have frozen up, and I gave them a massage which seems to have brought them back to life. Let’s hope they get me back to Duisburg.
In August and September I shall switch horses. There’s a peculiarly innovative scooter waiting for me, and I plan to scoot softly around the UK, under the radar screen, like the elderly gent that I am, gathering stuff for another book. Don’t ask …!