MooN

can you not avoid france by transiting through belgium or holland and down the left bank of the Rhine? or ferry in and out of belgium or holland? As there's no border controls within Schengen there's nothing to show you've been in france.

To be fair, the situation is rapidly going downhill in france at the moment, most of the main holiday destinations have had to re install mask wearing even outside ( that's going to make for some interesting tan lines...) and the number of cases is rising exponentially in all the seaside resort areas. Hospital cases are also rising but much slower as far as I can make out.

I got one like that. 60€. if the wheel isn't quite straight on it by the time youve turned it a full rotation it's moved off to one side and won't roll anymore. it's also pants on anything but a flat and clean surface. I can't be arsed with it anymore, I just put an old car jack under the footpeg bracket on the other side to the stand and jack the rear tyre off the flloor half an inch, can spin the wheel much easier then.

I have uk residents who own boats here who have come over, as I understood it it just means they have to quaranteen 10 days when they go home. IF the rules havent changed again by then. they didn't sem to have any trouble getting into france.

working this weekend, as per usual this time of year, even though it's frighteningly quiet ( boss man refused to let me buy a pot of paint this afternoon!) might possibly get a ride in on sunday if the storms forcast don't appear. Hot and muggy at the moment.

we were SOOOOOO lucky with our childminder, 100metres from the pharmacie where Madame MooN works and i still remember that when Madame was helicoptered of the roof of Auxerre hospital to Dijon menacing seriously premature birth of twins (14yrs ago) I rang her to see if she could pick up No.1 daughter from school ( No.1 being 5 at the time) she told me to go home, pick up a bag of clothes for No.1 and drop them off with her on my way to dijon...No.1 stayed with her for 3 days and nights, to and from school and everything, bloody brilliant and she then took on the twins when they were 3.

they'll let 'em in Pete ( need the money) it the UK that wont let them back home ( unless they quarantine for 2 weeks, even if double vaccinated) so they aren't coming. Those that had booked for august and sept are now cancelling. Oil mostly here I think. they don't harvest them til they're almost rotting in the fields.

it is if you know where to go, far from the madding crowd.

fukmine, how much?! I have 3 kids, my parents are in the uk and Madame Moon's parents were never in a fit state health wise to have any one of them, even for a weekend. We both work full time though Madame was allowed to work half time for a couple of years. We paid a child minder as there was no creche or association in the area. I can't remember exactly how much we paid nut it was nothing like that much and then we got part of it back in childcare allowance and it was all deductible from income tax.

3 and a bit hours, 200 odd km. hot and sunny. rode south for a while, then west foe a bit then north east for a time and ended up back at home.

144000km on my 600 transalp by the time i sold it. never let me down in 17 years and and only ever had wear parts changed.

Bonjour Motobiker, seems like you know some of the local nutjobs already

before 2019 and Brexit bullshit, 80%. we specialised in the uk market. in 2019 we lost about 20 % due to Brexit related uncertainties. 2020 we had 0 uk clients and only worked 4 months out of our usual 8. This year we were, untill this morning 50% down on bookings. that was going to pick up in august and sept... not anymore.

Boris has fucked us now, we were fairly busy early august and full on in september with brit bookings, but with Boris' announcement that brits returning from France will have to isolate even if they've had both vaccinations they're all cancelling... again... just over 10,000 cases yesterday in France so yes it's on the up, but compared to 54000 in the uk...

google the definition of "scrawny" and Tym's photo pops up

i passed my test on a heavily customised Honda CM125 ( the gutless wonder), sold it cos of moving to France and after saving up for a while over here bought a yamaha Xj 650 just like this one 'cept mine had 4 into one pipes I loved it so much that after winding it up to 130,000km I sold it on ( and saw it a year later with a paint job and 60,000 km less on the odo...) and bought an xj900 same as this but without the luggage or the lower engine bars. same colour and same screen but mine was never that clean of course... would I recommend either of them. They're so outdated now that they can't compare to modern bikes. They were both utterly bomb proof mechanically I bought the 650 with 60,000 km on the clock and wound it up to 130,000km in 3 years basic maintenance was all it got except for replacing the carb inlet pipes which had become porous. the 900 had 40, 000km on it when I bought it and i sold it with 98,000km 3 years later having done 2 uk return trips, Alsace, the jura, the alps and mont blanc on top of being my only everyday transport. I could ride it all day and the longer I stayed on it, the better it fitted me. If someone found a clean one I would absolutely recommand it as a tourer.

I thought this would be more your style Tym

makes you proud don't it?

tiger does about 52 mpg when just oodling around like yesterday. hooning around or autoroute work it drops to around 45 ish. when I first got it it was only doing 38 but that improved following the first service I had done.

nope, problem is really that any new job wants to pay minimum legal wage "to start with" which is basically 30% less than I currently earn.

It's a rock formation, basalt I think. called " Les rochers de basseville" it's f'kin apalling Bob, hot and wet with endless waves of storm cells moving noth east across most of the country. Storm dodging is fast becoming a riding / navigation technique. it was rather fun, I don't usually risk dirt tracks when there's storms about as I'm alone, on road tyres and not particularly competent off road so if it gets wet and slidy I could find myself rapidly out of my depth, but I am starting to gain confidence with the tiger off road and these were trails that i,ve been on before in the company van so I knew where I was and how far I needed to go to find tarmac again.

I hate electrics... well done for solutionising.

As expected, having been roasted by the sun all weekend my days off are forcast shit. I went riding anyway and actually avoided getting wet today. 130 odd km and 2 and a half hours ish. the bike is set up just right and is bloody perfect

too knackered by the time I get home and, frankly nothing to say. if it stops raining long enough I'll get some more ride reports in.

ok thanks Pete, waiting for things to evolve on all fronts and that always takes time.