MooN

At the moment we are still allowed to travel freely ( within the country) but hotels, restaurants, bars and all meeting venues are closed. Shoping malls of more than 20,000 sq metres are closed exept for food shops. There is a general curfew between 6pm and 6 am. Some parts of southern France are looking at a weekend curfew I believe, but not where I am. We are expecting a rework of the rules next week, once the Paris region is back from half term holiday ( God forbid that the parisiens should have to forgo their february skiing trip!)

I'm beach body ready. In much the same way as a beached whale !

I'm sure they do Pete but not having Yen's contacts or experience in the "underworld" of public sewerage, I don't have any other way to suggest entry to the delights of the Parisien poo park.

you can do guided tours of the parisien sewer network... https://www.pariszigzag.fr/balades-excursions/balade-paris/visite-des-egouts-de-paris

BMW's riding round France can be hears saying ti each other " My grandfazer vos here, durink ze vor. Ja, but he had no veels, only traks on both zides und a big gun in ze front... "

Only that it was one of the 5 designated beaches, right in the centre between Juno and Omaha... around Arromanches. The problem with visiting the beaches today is that they bear no resemblance to what they did 10 or 15 years ago, let alone 77 years ago, coastal erosion has completer remodelled the landscape, though I believe you can still see the remains of the Mulberry harbours, one of which would have been on Gold Beach, the Other on Omaha. As a kid I studied the naval engagements surrounding D-Day ( obsessed by boats even then. so I could probably tell you what ships bombarded and then supported Gold beach, but I'm sure that's all on the web somewhere.

That's one of the more strongly worded one Bob! " assanitad by the enemy" ! I have also come across them in some very remote places. One of the first I found round here you would need to know it was there to find it and it's a big one, apparantly where the Local Kommandatur liked to take his suspects and line them up to be shot, a secluded spot with a bloody history.

cockpit pics taken today, all special like.

what'd they do that for?

" In that light..." ?

@XTreme I hope you noticed that I did the screen shot of my route with the adventuremotorcycles tab in the background at the top... ?

Nope, only in very general terms, not my specialist subject I'm afraid. I did a lot of research into the Somme offensives of the 1st war prior to going there a couple of years ago, and a lot more into the resistance, specifically in Burgundy as I can easily access local records and have been able to speak to people who were actually there and involved... no longer alas, as those alive today would have been old enough to even run messages for the resistance in 1940 would be well into their 90's today and those old enough to bear arms have all gone. The last person I spoke to who actually remembered the occupation from when she was a young girl was the wife's grandmother, who died " years ago at the age of 98. I still want to visit the Normandy sites butthey're too far from me for me to actually get involved with.

Yes, wherever there was extensive and organised resistance action, so more towards the end of the war, post D-Day like this one for july '44. the earlier dates are rarer though the resistance was officially organised from July 1940 following De Gaule's " Call to continue the combat" broadcast by the BBC from London on the 18th June 1940. Date still commemorated by the French every year. "L'appel du 18 juin". i could bore the socks off you with this, it's my pet subject... Had Churchill's " we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets..." actually come to pass, we would probably see similar in the uk today. Many think that that speech by Churchill was at least partly aimed at encouraging the french resistance and persuading them to actually do this and that we should do the same.

Well I had planned to get up early (ish) and ride my default or "go to" round trip, the one I like, and ride when I can't be arsed to plan anything properly. As it happened I didn't manage to drag my sorry carcass out of my pit untill nearly 11, so by the time I'd got my eyes lined up with their holes it was lunch time and my "go to" ride was no longer doable comfortably in the time remaining before curfew as its pretty much a 5 Hour ride... So, I concocted this one 250 odd km, and using the village of Chevroches ( literally "goat rocks" ) as the southern point and sticking to the more minor roads. Lovely spring day, nearly 20 degrees and a high thin layer of cloud just to stop the sun being too bright. No leaves on the trees yet so not really spring, just felt like it. one of the numerous memorials to resistance fighters on the roadside in this part of France. I think I've posted this one before but it would have been a looong time ago so you won't remember ?. notice that the distinction is made between " Tués" ( killed) and " Fussillés" ( shot). Tué, means killed during a fight or in action. Fusillés means lined up and shot. the woodlands: I'm quote proud of this one, not good at panoramic shots usually, but the light was good and I think i pulled it off... This is Chevroches, a small medieval village just south of Clamecy, I wanted to stop and have a look here because I might be running some boats from here later this season if the Local mayor can pull his finger out. more woodland on the way home "Good evening Lemmings" Yeah, the curfew won't stop the french going on holiday ( Paris-ite school hols this week) but it means they are ALL on the road between 6am and 6 pm. Auxerre is where the 6 lane autoroute becomes 4 lanes which is always fun when its busy.

You could have been trying to find Stiffkey ( pronounced "Stukie") or Wymondham ( pronounced "Windum") or Happisburg ( pronounced "Hazebruh") the list is endless in that part of the world so Bungay ("Bung'y) maybe isn't so bad ?

well it's fecking miles round it if you hadn't stumbled onto the ferry, middle of bloody nowhere too and the sort of place where if you stop and ask the locals how to get somewhere they'll reply something helpful like " Narritch? ow to git to Narritch? well yew don't wannoo start from'ere bor..." andthen wander off aimlessly into the fog ?

I should think there will. I will be doing some riding this weekend either sat or sun... or possibly both

Aye, Reedham chain ferry that'd be. My old stamping ground that, still a member (honarary) of the Suffolk Coasters bike club in Lowestoft. I guessed that was whealies bike too.

That or something even more unsavory, probably laced with colourful references to the doubful legitimacy of my ancestry. They could form a club with the mechanics at the renault garage next door who almost certainly remembers the day I had a full meltdown in there and nearly killed their manager with his own telephone. ?

oh in French Bob, no point if they can't understand it, and it's less effective if the other clients don't get what's going on. When I'm angry EVERYBODY needs to know about it!

it's got a fekking great searchlight on the top of it, 'bout 18" diameter by the looks of it, that ain't a clay pigeon tower...

it was 16c and sunny this morning but I had to take Madame's car back to the tyre place (again) as they're a bunch of incompetant fuckwits, and glare at them menacingly until they did what I had asked them to do in the first place. I'm not a patient person but I am rarely openly rude and agressive. Today was an exception and one of the fuckwits got shouted at. Anyway, long story short, I didn't get home till nearly 12 and Madame was deep in the twins maths homework, so we didn;t eat till nearly 2 by which time the forcast storm was nearly upon us. I rushed to get the bike out and get some riding in before a0 the storm broke and b) curfew... i realised as I rolled out that I hadn't checked tyre pressuressince the bike had been sat for a week or more so I headed first for some air I usually do this with a foot pump but I was already togged up and getting overheated when I remembered so I came here, wonderful peice of kit this one, when you attach the air hose it lets all of the air out of your tyre! The only way to meke it work is to hold the end onto the valve and then press the green button on the pillar. I magaged to get it to stay on but not to seal properly so as you pump air in, it lets it out as soon as you stop the compressor so I had to pump it up to 3+ bar, let go the button and dive at the bloody valve hoping to get it off at 2.9bar precisely.... I got "some air".... The storm front was coming in from the west so I rode a while north, almost along the leading edge of it and then turned East to run befoe it hoping to outrun it before turning south and cutting back West in the hope of finding a passage round it's southern edge the storm was moving quite fast so I didn't stop for many pics as I could see the rain moving in behind me, I did have to stop here for this pic though as I knew @XTreme would never forgive me if I passed up an opportunity for some dark motorcycling, I have no clue as to WTF this is doing here, or what is the other side of that wall, but it looks well abandoned, so I will be back for an explore as and when possible and I'll have a gander on gooooogley earth later to see what shows up. it has to be military with a watch tower like that right? did 100 odd km and managed to get home dry by diving through a gap between two storm cells and got home half an hour before curfew and 15 minutes before it rained "like a cow pissing on a flat rock" as the locals here say ? PS. The pics were taken on my phone which is not my usual M.O. and the quality is, surprisingly, not as good as I thought it might be.

yeah but what pontoon you going ta nail it to?

Nice pics. Are you not restricted the same as @XTreme then, or do you just have a much bigger area to play in?

Ewwwww!