MooN

I can't help you, but I feel for you @Slowlycatchymonkey, i'm fairly handy and can usually figure things out but not elecmatrickery, totally useless at it. apart from making sparks, I can do that!

the jocks are all out of KILTer...

nope. it was a bank holiday weekend here though with ascencion thursday being holiday, so everyone shuts the friday as well so they get a 4 day weekend so nothing was going to happen very fast anyway. I also know through experience that 90% of applications dont even get a response and about 75% of interviews dont get a response either unless you chase them. No reponse is basically a "No". but I haven't given up hope yet. I'm also applying for loads of other jobs as well but so far no results.

weathers gone all to shit here for the moment, but I'm working all weekend anyway. On my own at work all day tomorrow so probably actually get stuff done.

I' ve been told thay their eyes dont reflect light like deer or rabits do, so you don't see them at night either

I saw that one too! didn't know wether to laugh or cry

I was 5!

bloody right! pure evil on legs they are!

No1 decided she'd teach No's 2a & 2b to make banana pancakes but they needed to go shopping first. I profited from their absence to bugger off out of it whilst they weren't looking! Weather still very unstable with some big storm cells moving north and east. I rode out east through Chablis but before getting far got a text from Madame Moon saying that Vermenton ( south and west of me) had just been hit by a big thunder and lightening storm and some really heavy rain. I looked over that way, behind me, to this " Oh Poo" said Tigger, and turned and fled north, in an attempt to outrun the front and turn round the north end of it's leading edge thus avoiding the worst of the rain. I had to run a fair way north and east before turning back west and nipping under the very northern edge of the front. this is looking at it from the other side, so looking east once I'd passed under it's northern edge and come out the other side. plenty of lightening ( which I obviously wasn't capable of getting a pic of) and once stopped I could clearly hear the thunder, despite idling engine, helmet and earplugs. Once out the other side, it turned out quite pleasant again and whilst wending our merry way homewards Tigger got to meet Piglets, though I think he found him a bit of a boar...

the first 6 years I was in france I didn't have a car and used throw over panniers on my xj650 and then the xj900 for doing the shopping.

That'd be a bloody close run thing in this house I've had a bike since I was 16 and was a pillion "Biker" behind older mates well before that. I've only had the wife since the age of 27 and the kids since the ages of 31 and 36, so if seniority is a factor...

my wife's paternal grandmother is steadfastly refusing to be vaccinated ( 92 and in a nursing home) because her youngest son nearly died due to the polio vaccin back in the 50's so she won't countenance any vaccins.

are they going to let him get them, more to the point...

yeah but only cos I was always told that if nobody else sees it, it doesn't count. I shan't mention the other two times...

never sold anything on ebay. never bought anything there either...

I dropped it static Pete...

Weather was a bit odd on sunday, 10/10ths cloud cover with a warm wind from the south and an odd light so the pics might look a bit strange. Having spent all day saturday in the car traveling from here to Louhans, to Perouges, to Lyon and back here again my back was aching so I decided on a short ride, close to home allowing me to pull the plug and retreat if I got any pain or if the bizarre weather turned to sht. I rode south along the river to Bailly and visited the cooperative wine cellar there there are about 4 hectares underground (50 ish metres underground) where they make Cremant de Bourgogne, a local fizzy wine. This has remained open as it is, naturally, considered by the French as a "neccessary commerce". I started here because there are 3 of these underground systems along the east bank of the river between Auxerre and Cravant. Originally stone mines at the turn of the last century, this is the only one that is still safe to visit. Used today as a cooperative wine producer and seller, it was used as a munitions depot by the Germans during the occupation, the other two cave systems further along the valley were used as an aircraft repair facility by the Luftwaffe and were the target of a number of allied bombing raids. The acces is not easy and the airfield is the other side of the river, so they set up a cableway from the cave entrance, across the river and down to the valley floor. The remains of the site are still visible IF you know where to look, and I have seen at the local mayors office, photographs of a focke wulf fighter being hauled up the cableway from the runway to the underground workshop in the cliff face. the entrance/ Exit South along the river again, through Vincellottes and Vincelles onto the winding back road along the eastern bank between the cliff and the river you come across this first last time I came up here you could go in the pill box, and obviously many of the local "youfs" had done so over the years. The entrance is now sealed with a steel door and it has been transformed into a bat breeding site The other side of the pill box looks out over a 15 or 20 metre drop across the valley . A hundred metres further along is the first of the underground workshop entrances. the sign on the door says that there are "Pieges a feu" ( explosive traps) and alarms to discourage intruders. on the opposite side of the road are the vestiges of the winding tower for the cableway again looking out over the river below, but you cant see that due to the vegetation. another 100 or so metres along is the 2nd, smaller, entrance photo taken AFTER tigger had decided to have a wee nap I even had the presence of mind to think of you lot and take a pic befor picking it up! In the time it took me to pick it up 2 cars had stopped to see if I was ok or needed help, which was reassuring. On south again, past another pill box and then, as the cliff peters out somewhat, the remains of the soldiers and techniciens barracks from there I dropped down to the village of Cravant, crossed the river and headed back north along the main road to Vincelles, cut east across the railway and back towards the same place but the other side of the river and on the valley floor. The airfield is now a model aircraft club airfield from this position, if I turn northwards a little you can see the workshop entrances in the cliff face over the river ( just left of centre in the pic below) there are no traces left of the cableway gear down here, though I have heard that some are still visible down by the river. further along a dirt track from the airfield, about level with the far end of the runway is another, I presume, barracks or possibly workshop? they obviously had to dismantle wings and suchlike before moving a plane up the cables to the cliff workshop, and re assemble them again before flight. I rode straight in and took a pic looking back east straight across the valley to the cliff entrances. zoomed... I took a short vid of this place but have no idea how to post it so I'll have to work on that.

you should buy shares in that jet wash! @XTreme

we're looking into wankers redundancy, but the French employment laws are atrocious for trying to get rid of somebody, costs huge amounts of money unless you can prove professional misdeeds.

oooh thanks, I might have to try that. I have followed the various adventures of Colebatch riding that part of the world which has only served to fuel my desire to go there one day.

Dunno, try searching for Fred Coleman the Author

I'm already a lot slower than I used to be. the problem is, it's not really his fault, our main mechanic has been off sick ( piss taking) for a year now and despite advertising we've had 0 candidates for the job. That, on top of the covid situation means that he doesn't really have much choice. However, I ran with it for the 4 months of last season ( and ended with a ruptured tendon in my ledt shoulder and a split meniscus in my left knee) but said quite clearly that I was NOT prepared to do another season like that one. He is also playing the mechanic and painting boats etc, but that is, at the end of the day not my problem, it's his company and I am an employee and I need to look after me at the moment he can look after himself.

had to start back to work again this week. Not a happy Bunny. due to circumstances I have taken a step back 30 years and am now doing a mechanics job. Problem is my boss seems to think that I can do this on top of all the stuff I am supposed to do as manager like sourcing and ordering parts, fuel, gas, running the stock, fixing the bikes, client paperwork, client handovers etc etc etc. I have told him, in writing, that I am not physically capable of doing the mechanics job ( which is why they changed my job description in 2016 after my back operation) and gave him a copy of that letter. So far he has simply carried on as if he never got the mail. Not gonna last cos I will rapidly break down ( physically). Needless to say i haven't been up to posting much this week.

"Le Reseau Marcel" was originally written in English, but it was bought for me in French by my mother in law. Itis an incredible (true) story of Moussa Abadi, a Syrien jew and his french catholic wife who between them, and with the help of numerous others, saved 527 jewish children from the concentration camps. I have just go to the part where Odette ( Moussa's wife) is interned in Auschwitz. She avoided death because she was a nurse and volonteered to help in the "hospital" which was, in fact Dr Mengele's experimentation lab... the absolute pure and unadulterated horror of it is very, very clear. The book as a whole is a striking example of normal people taking extraordinary risks to do what they know to be right and just, whatever the cost. Not however, a book for the faint hearted.