Modern Vespa

Wonderful news jimc on your residency
Lovely x

All kitty paws crossed! X

What sort of things interest you/your family?

We've done all the more obvious museums a couple of times. Not so fussed by tacky tourist shite like the London Dungeon. Happy to stroll through some of the parks and along the river, but if anyone has any inspired ideas.....

We normally have a mooch round the shops as well - I need to visit Covent Garden this time

Bit too Clifford Clavin for you?

Weather looks passable for the weekend.

If you've in Cov Gdn, you're quite near the Hunterian http://www.hunterianmuseum.org/ (elephant man/Siamese twin skeletons pickled in jars, and all sorts of other gruesome stuff). Great for 30-45 mins, and can be followed by a drink/lunch in the 7 Stars in Carey Street - an excellent pub with their own cat who often wears an Elizabethan style ruff. Going to the loo is like climbing the stairs in an old ship.

And/or John Soanes' House, also on Lincoln's Inn Fields (although you need to check opening times as sometimes it's restricted to pre-booked tours).

If weather's nice, try lunch from the café at Somerset House (there's a restaurant and a café. Café takes a bit more looking for, depending on which way you enter the building, but it's decent value and good fresh food. Largely veggie, but don't let that put you off. I'm an inveterate meat eater, but I love the food there) and take it outside onto the terrace overlooking the river and the South Bank.

It's the last weekend of Martin Creed at The Hayward Gallery over the river (and near BFI, if you're going there for the Bond). Might be a bit crowded, but it's great. One of the things is a room full of big white balloons that you go into and charge around. Our 4 yr old loved it.

Nice suggestions, both of you.

Thanks

The London Transport Museum is very good and located at Covent Garden too.
http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/

Cheers. We've wandered past it a couple of times but not ventured inside.

Birreh and I also recommend the transport museum. it's much, much more interesting than the name and the theme would lead you to believe.

the house rollercoaster continues ... the sellers have actually agreed to have a structural engineers report done, and they've hired a very reputable firm ... so the sale is not dead in the water just yet. of course the results of said report will open up a whole new box of drama, but it's 'somewhat' reassuring to know that there is still a chance it may work out ....

still shaking my head with amazement at how ridiculously fraught this whole process is.

best of luck on the job froggie - we'll expect good news from you in a few days

Best wishes genie, I hope everything rights itself in the long run. It really should not be this difficult...

Just catching up here... Best of luck, Genie. I'm sure that this will work out for you... hopefully the new report agrees with yours and the sellers are amenable to making some changes and looking at the asking price.

Congrats, Jim, welcome to the resident madness that is the U S of A! You're no longer only a visitor.

And bon chance, Froggie, I'm sure that you are just the person that they are seeking!

A very apt description ... for this and many other "continuing sagas" that come along. The trick is to put on your zen attitude that it'll take as long as it takes. The obverse is to not get so worn out by the never-ending nonsense that you just throw up your hands and accept any thing. That's when they beat your head in.

Still pulling for you.

And your point is?

This is pointless

At some point today, I need to stop the pointless puttering and find the point of my life.

(Reality is to do laundry)

Whats the point?

That sounds really hopeful to be honest.

I took my Kwak in for its first 500 mile service at 830 miles today down to Chatham. It pissed down with rain all the way but still felt nice and stable at 85mph on the A2. Going back was more interesting. I had gone there via the QE2 bridge at Dartford and decided to come back via the Blackwall Tunnel. Mistake. This morning one of Lozza's friend's shops (All Bike Engineering) burnt down. It is just adjacent to the Tunnel in Greenwich, so it was closed and all the traffic was diverted over Blackheath and the A2. It took me about an hour and a half to get in. Couldn't even filter most of the time due to sheer volume and gridlock but spent lots of time chatting to other bikers. The upside on that though is that I got two hours practise at slow riding! Got very, very wet and the bike is very dirty!

On the way back up the M2 I was in a reflective mood. I was remembering the trip we Donks did to Belgium way back in 2008 and the nightmare journey we had back up the M2 on a very foggy Sunday night. I remember one of the Donks saying to me to try and maintain a speed at 50mph on my GTS300 and also the terror of that ride. Today - the same ride, in the rain, over the Medway Bridge at Rochester, all at speeds nudging triple digits on the speedo. It kind of felt that I was experiencing "impostor syndrome" - you know, when you have those feelings that you shouldn't really be there, doing those kind of things, as that is the prerogative of someone else!

The first time I went to Bike Normandy, in 2005, the journey from London to Portsmouth seemed incredibly long and intrepid. The ride back, after a week in France and 1000 miles or so, was a piece of cake!

We've clocked up 93 pages, so we'll need that new thread title soon - Pepy and I better get busy.
I have a few contenders

This thread's over a year old so I can't remember what Alice did last time - do we get all democratic, I put up some suggestions in the last few pages of this thread and youse lot choose your fave, or do I just shoot my best shot and then you're stuck with it for another year?!

BB
What about Skokadoodledooooo!

Sorry did I miss something?
Kwak?
Where's the Triumph?

I was thinking for the new thread some twist on motivational quotes:

Have less, do more, be more Donkei Skök

Donkei Sköks will get you through this.

Work hard, dream big Donkei Sköks

What doesn't kill you, makes you Donkei Skök.

You'll have to watch the page count. As soon as it nears the 100 tipping point - start a new topic. The old one will get locked by a mod - the exact order of these two events is indeterminate.

This is why I love diversity, completely different ideas to me

Pepy and I are on the case, doing 'you show me yours, I'll show you mine'...

When the time comes, just post up - you don't have to confer with any other Donks beforehand.

http://thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi?word=Skok

keep up at the back!! he'd had the Triumph for 3 entire months, it was time for it to go

in other news (and make sure you're sitting down, because this is fascinating stuff) i have just switched energy suppliers as my present supplier (co-operative energy) have taken me off the fixed tariff that i was offered to lure me in as a customer, and put me onto a standard tariff which is more expensive. when i asked if there were any better deals available to existing customers i was told that they only offer their best deals to new customers i'm no marketing genius but that hardly seems the best way to gain long-term business. anyway, i'm off to ovo.

At least in the UK you get a pretty large choice of energy supplier - or can even conjure up your own community one. Just the one here - the land of freedom seems to love monopolies.

Bugger, my 'M' key is going wonky, I have to stab it really hard to get an 'm' to appear. Surgery may be required - in the ean tie please don't coplain about y lack of ''s.

Probably a bit of food or errant toenail clipping under there

A fellow art lover sent me these this week

You do have such a way with words my dear...

Anyway, back out into the rain onto the Kwak. Traction control firmly ON

Skok in the name of the law!

Off to Belgium in the morning, nice early start.....6.30am

Going to visit the Lions Mound on the way to the far side of Belgium, staying near to Bastogne. Probably visit Luxembourg City as it's so close.

Safe travels!

Chips.

Bill x

Happy May Day, workers of the world.
Parked up my scoot in central
London this morning, outside work, to see a Morris side waving their hankies and dancing for all they were worth.
Gotta love crazy English traditions.

BB

Mrs Av says bollocks to May Day! All the stores in Paris are closed and she really needs retail therapy. We've seen all the "sights" many times.

What a boost to my wallet, however.

Skok in the name of love

Though I like this too:

people, we are in sight of the 100 page mark. it's time to start talking industrial volumes of shite to push this one over the edge