Tango

2 minutes ago, XTreme said:

That's really nice Bob!

Thanks Pete. We stretched to budget a bit, but we both fell in love with the place when we saw it. And it's got aircon in all the rooms too!

On 28/08/2021 at 11:49, Tym said:

Pics when you can! sounds like what i want. 

It's nothing fancy, but it ticks all of our boxes.

13 hours ago, XTreme said:

Nobody likes any of the Bots?

I'd never realised what or who they were before? Yeah, yeah, I live under a rock!

38 minutes ago, XTreme said:

What sort of property is it Bob?

It's a small villa, Pete. Just fancied somewhere with a bit of a garden around it.

Today I will mainly be waiting in for a couple of deliveries. Not much biking action planned for the weekend. 

At least, yesterday we went for another look around the place that we're buying and started planning how we're going to furnish it, as we ditched most of our furniture in the UK before we came out here.

How about a photo thread with a different theme each month? For instance one month could be bridges, with a photo of your bike and a bridge? Just as another bit of fun and it may give folks some inspiration of places to seek out on their bike?

Just a thought @XTreme?

3 hours ago, XTreme said:

That's a great shot Bob!

Thanks Pete. You may have seen it on FB too. 

5 minutes ago, Six30 said:

Just needs a milkshake to go with it!

19 minutes ago, XTreme said:

So you're saying that potentially you come from the same gene pool as Six then? 

Sorry to hear that Bob! 

I came from the respectable side of the pool though, Pete!

10 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

Dartford, if anyone even just looks at the bridge or tunnels in a funny way then the whole area comes to a grinding halt.

I was supposed to drive to Aveley last week just north of the bridge and just before I was due to leave I checked google maps for the traffic situation. Everywhere around there was black with standstill traffic (might have been dark red, but colour blind and all that). I had to grab all my stuff out of the car and start strapping it to my bike at the last minute.

Yeah, my mum lives not far from the crossing and it's regularly gridlocked around her place. 

I had a zoom call arranged with one of my mates last Friday evening,  but I got a message to postpone it until the weekend as he was stuck trying to get back from Kent! 

It's a nightmare!

About 30 years ago I used to go over to Boston, MA to help the local engineer out. Nice guy and president of his local Harley chapter, but he had a really bad limp, which I assumed was the result of a bike accident. 

I was over one time and we got chatting about bikes and that and I asked if the limp was the result of a bike accident? He laughed and said no.

He told me that he was on the gun boats that patrolled the rivers during the Vietnam War.  One day they were out on patrol and came under fire from one bank. He was laid on the deck returning fire along with the bow gunner. They then came under fire from the other bank, so the bow gunner swung round to return fire, but didn't take his finger off the trigger, so he shot-up his own boat and the guy I knew had a big lump blasted out of his left leg by his own gunner!

Still, that was the end of his war!

11 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Where are you from originally Bob?

Originally from northwest Kent, Pete, but I moved to Cambridgeshire in the early 90's because of work. My mum used to ask when was I going to move back and I said never. She lives in Dartford and moans about it constantly.

16 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

Farm's still going, do a nice set of market stalls on a Saturday now. I had to resurface the whole length of Stepney Way a few years ago and I offered to sort out their puddle filled crossover at the same time but they said they couldn't close it any day of the week to let me do the work so it got left.

My resurface of Stepney Way was a second attempt due to snow a few weeks earlier. I didn't actually have a legal road closure the second time round but told everyone I did and got away with it. When I turned up on the morning before closing off the road what do I find? A car wrapped around a lamp post, a boy driver in custody and a ring of police vehicles at jaunty angles after a high speed chase. I asked the rozzer in charge if he was going to measure any skid marks because they wouldn't exist in an hour or so.

I'm glad that the farm is still there and doing ok. It would have been a shame to see it close.

13 minutes ago, Pedro said:

Thanks! I've done a couple of reports last year in which you really see the differences between north and south, and the countryside.

I'll go back through and have a read of them.

Yes, the little I've seen of Portugal, Porto was different to Lisbon which is different to the Algarve. But that's what makes it so interesting. I don't have a favourite,  because they were all interesting and enjoyable in their own way.

I love the little that I've seen of Portugal.  The people I met there were all really friendly too. Maybe I'll get to go and explore there some more in the future, but, in the meantime, keep posting your photos of the country please.

40 minutes ago, yen_powell said:

Three Mills. This is actually a few feet away from a massive Tesco car park and about 50 yards from the A12 Blackwall Tunnel Approach Road. Lots of artistic types running about outside as there is a film/tv studio attached. Lovely building on the river Lea.

https://spitalfieldslife.com/2021/08/26/at-the-house-mill-o/

 

Streetview so you can look around at the not so pretty surroundings. 

https://goo.gl/maps/chiGNHdbhiofyPoV7

Excellent. 

I used to drive more or less past that when I was going into the Royal London Hospital. I'd come down the M11 and then onto the Blackwall tunnel approach, but I turned off just past Bromley-by-Bow underground station and then head across to Stepney High Street and then the back roads through to the hospital. Some interesting places along the way. There used to be a small farm not far from Stepney High Street, but I think it was getting closed down the last time I saw it.

Sonofabitch!

7 minutes ago, XTreme said:

Nice shot Bob!

Where's @MooN.......he's into this stuff?

There's another memorial that I know of a bit to the east of here. I'll have to make a trip over there and get a picture of that one too.

This morning. The memorial is for a group of French resistance fighters that were ambushed by the Nazis when they were heading to a sabotage mission just after D-Day. Most were either killed at the scene or executed in prison a few days later. There's a memorial service held here every year on the date of the massacre.

Definitely. I rode about 50 metres from my parking space in the supermarket to the petrol pump with no gloves this morning and I didn't like even that short distance!

I was talking to a young lad in a bike shop a few years back and we got onto the subject of bike gear. He said that when he started riding he used to wear nylon tracksuit bottoms and an anorak and no gloves. All was well until one day, whilst showing off to his mates by pulling a wheelie, he binned it and slid up the road on his arse. Took the skin off both palms of his hands, but he said the friction melted the nylon tracksuit bottoms. He said the indignity of having his mum using tweezers to remove pellets of melted nylon from his arse prompted him to get proper bike gear from then on!