January 2026

 

January 2026

 

I have been trapped by the weather it being too wet or too cold. At the beginning of the month frost and snow enough to have had Observed Sunday cancelled allowing me to stay in bed warm. There are now safety guidelines that gatherings should not take place if it is 5C and below. Sensible really especially in rural areas unexpected pockets of ice can catch you out particularly on Sunday mornings when traffic is light. When it wasn’t freezing there were gray skies and rain, rain and more rain. Not good for arthritis but I managed to do some walking pretty much every day to get rid of the stiffness in my joints. I often feel like I am losing the use of my legs.

Ice on the canal

As the weather was not good I set about sorting out a problem with the showers in the house. The upstairs one works with good temperature control but the thermal valve leaks a little. However the downstairs one gets no hot water at all. After a Corgi call out about it the diagnosis was the upstairs shower thermal valve was damaged to the extent that it allowed hot and cold water to mix rendering all the hot taps down stairs cool. I then set about ordering a new thermal valve. Apparently not the right one. Weeks later I still have not tracked down the right one. I will have to remove the valve, take measurements and photos and to do this I will have to turn the water supply off. No water, you can prepare for but no heating at this time of year is a disaster.

Tap into disaster

On one cloudy but dry for a bit day I escaped on the Buell on a forty mile loop to Amersham and returning via Beaconsfield and a blat along the M40 back home. The roads were dry except one short section which was muddied by HS2 work between Beaconsfield and High Wickham. It stretched from a tee junction over two close roundabouts. Covering the Buell and me with mud splats. It now needs washing as does my gear. The joys of winter riding.

Buell after the ride

Gita and I received a Christmas present that was a Spa break at a Warner hotel. A bit of luxury at a posh hotel that has swimming pool, sauna and massage parlour. We enjoyed it all with lots of food and entertainment. It could have been Hotel California but not quite as the entertainment for Saturday night was Talon an Eagles tribute band and they were excellent. While there we did walks along the Thames which was flowing so fast and only inches away from bursting its banks. It is a chain hotel and there are a number throughout the country it is a thought for other breaks throughout the year and with entertainment.

 I have not used the El Cid or the Burton since last year. After breaking the fan pulley wheel and overheating the engine of the El Cid I thought it would be prudent to change the engine oil. This I did on a cold dry day. Making a mess and just getting everything tidied up before the weather changed it was a chore that needed to be done before I forgot about it.

December 2025

 

December 2025

 

December started in India staying with my sister-in-law, Bhonti her son Ankur and her mother. We had travelled to Delhi for a memorial of Gita’s brother who had passed away in May. Having just got back in April we were unable to go again for the funeral in May. Our visas had expired. Our son Amit was also with us on this trip. He was going on a spiritual experience in Coimbatore.

 At the beginning of the visit Chinmoy and Lakhu from Assam joined us in Delhi making it a very special time. It was a bit like having an early Christmas but being away I missed the December Observed Sunday and the subsequent move from Cobham Village Hall to Normandy Village Hall for the January Observed Sunday. The roads have fewer restrictions and less traffic that should make getting out into the countryside easier and quicker for tuition sessions.

I was back in time for the Thames Tortoises Christmas meal on the club night, third Monday of the month. Only three of us to enjoy the evening, Richard, Peter and myself. I have been given a challenge to take some photos of the modifications made to the El Cid for the Sahara Challenge I did in 2004. This was having installed protection plates for the sump and the petrol tank. I had been warned by the experts that there should be no space for stones to get into. The best thing is to have foam to ensure this. It gives room for impacts from rocks and stones room for the plate to move to and not damage what you to protect. The sponge also stops small stones from getting into that space and causing damage.

The next night was the LE club night and also there was a Christmas meal. Earlier in the evening and not at our usual pub. When we finished we continued at our usual venue, with Chris. Antony, Phil and myself in attendance. It was a very social evening exchanging Christmas cards and knowledge. Another festive night out.

Christmas was a family affair made most enjoyable by having the grandchildren present with all the chaos that surrounds them when they have too much energy that cannot be dissipated in a small house. There were frequent walk to parks and excursions to any activity that kept them busy. The highlight was going ten pin bowling with the kids doing better than the adults at Westfield. What a place and I found the place difficult to get to with the volume of traffic, parking and finding the bowling alley an unpleasant experience. It is just too big with too many people. It annoys me you have to pay a tenner just to park! I can go to Uxbridge, pay £2 for parking and no hassle and still go bowling.

Before that experience it was another French Car Day at Blackbushe airport with another gathering of Citroen friends. It was so cold that retiring to the cafe for a hot drink was essential. We all had a pleasant hour staying out of the cold before it was time to head for home.

November 2025

 

November 2025

The weather has changed along with the clocks. Halloween has just been celebrated and Gita and I joined in at Darlingtons in Aylesbury for an early meal at the café. A gruesome cocktail with spiders' web soup. A very pleasant start to the evening. I needed an early night as there was an early start in the morning for the Wey Valley Observed Sunday. 

It was a wet start and I took the car. I would have to wash a bike if I went out on it. The Buell was back home and I would have like a ride on it but not today although it would be better later, later was not now. Today there were detours for junction ten on the M25 so I went through Walton to get to Cobham arriving at the village hall at around 8:30. This meeting was different. John was away and Bob was taking over and his first time in his new career. The shop was already laid out and ready to go. Nothing much for me to do. There were only a handful of people but it was soon buzzing after an hour and were selling lots of stickers and not much else. The sun was out and roads were drying. A good time to do my morning photo round of the car park. Soon after the announcements we started to pack stuff away. Bob found a discrepancy with the stock list not discovered before creating more work with everyone checking every thing again and again. I needed to leave to go to Norfolk. 

This was the start of the problems for the day. I returned home and was caught out by the roadworks and diversions and made my way home by a much longer route. Gita needed the car while I was away at Martham with my brothers for the week. I changed cars and loaded up the El Cid. It is over three-hour drive time and should arrive before it gets dark. My departure time was 2:15. Later than I wanted to be. I had just got on to the M25 and straight into a jam. Crawling for an hour and stationary for half of that time I cleared the obstruction and was making good progress again. Stopping for fuel just on the A14 after two and a half hours and I had still one and a half to go. I was starting to get dark as I left the services and plagued with inappropriate lights on cars and lorries that slowed my progress because I just could not see, much to the annoyance of the drivers causing the problem. Eventually arriving at Martham boatyard about half six and feeling quite stressed at how the day had gone. Give me beer!

The next day was more serene with a gentle walk, a cruise in the boat and a grand meal at the Nelson Head in Horsey. This was the pattern for the week with a bit of sailing thrown in. 

Testing out the new type of electric outboard and light weight lithium battery was a new experience gaining confidence in each expedition. It turned out to be very successful removing any battery life anxiety. I had become so destressed I didn’t manage to get to the Norfolk Motorcycle Museum this year.

The return journey presented its’ own challenges. Early Saturday morning to miss the traffic it was a breeze negotiating roadworks without holdups. Stopping on the A14 just before the M11 for a break and fuel it was time to say goodbye to my brothers before they headed off for Bristol by the northerly route. Progress was good until on the M11 there was no charge. I thought it was the fan belt broken, or the flywheel come adrift. None of which could be a problem and fixed when I got home. When on the M25 progress was slowed by the sheer volume of traffic and only then I became aware of something more serious. There was a rattle at low revs that went as the revs increased. That worried me. Even more so that there was nowhere to stop. Smart motorways had become death traps. The engine was still running. Keep going until you have to stop. It might just be in a better place. I continued at a steady pace and finally just a mile from home I had to stop at traffic lights then smoke crept out from under the bonnet. It did not smell like a fire. The lights changed. We were still running. It was an agonising few minutes before I swung into my drive at home and was able to stop.

Home and time to see what was wrong. The fan belt was still there and so was the centre boss of the flywheel but it was not connected. The flywheel had broken free from the centre boss. The engine was no longer fan cooled and had over heated using a bit of oil and the smoke was oil on the outside of the oil cooler. I borrowed the fan from the van engine in the garage to keep the El Cid operational and did that in a few hours. It seems that there was no damage done through overheating but as a precaution I will need to change the oil.

 I was out on the Buell as soon as the weather permitted with a forty mile round trip via Amersham. A pleasant drive not highlighting any problems. The weather turned colder and I suffered from it I used the El Cid to go to the Thames Tortoises club night in Ashford discovering that the windscreen wipers would not work and the fan belt cover had worked loose both of which I fixed the next day. The wipers soon worked again with a touch of WD40 backed up with spray grease to keep the rain out. It took a bit longer to secure the cover over the alternator pulley wheel as the cover edges needed reworking to get the right shape then it fitted securely. That evening it was LE club night. It was unusually cold in the pub but it was an evening of warm reunion with a member managing to get to us after a delay of five years. There was a lot of catching up. Then it snowed. I have no memory of it ever having snowed this early in November fortunately it didn’t settle and was gone in an hour. This prompted me to get on with garden preparations for winter like turning the irrigation system off covering the garden chairs to protect them from the ravishes of winter, pruning roses and a quick repair job on a lose panel with one hand and electric screwdriver in the other not only screwed it down but also my finger.  Had to unscrew the screw to release my finger. Stupid really as I was holding and supporting the parts and my finger was where the screw ended up. I’ll stay out of the garden for a bit. It’s too dangerous for me.

 

 

 

 

October 2025

 

October 2025

 

October is the month for funerals. My dad died in October  my mum did as well. One of our very good friends was added to the list and a trip to Barnsley was needed. I feel that this month we need to change our names to Mister and Misses De’Ath. Too many people we know have left this world. I refer to Zuben Garg the famous Assamese pop star and I was lucky enough to be invited to the UK Premiere of his movie about drugs and gangs while he was here. A message for the youth of Assam.

Another Observed Sunday and the A3 closed again so I had to do another detour to get around the problem. All was not bad. This Sunday another Club magazine “Intercom” was issued and contained one of my articles “Who is Jugal Bailung?” It was about a short video of my first Ride to Arunachal in January this year. Nice to see my Assamese friends get some credit.

I have new spots for the El Cid. Those I fitted in 1997 have lost their lustre. Still working but with corroded reflectors needed sorting so I set about rewiring as the fittings were different. So were the mounting brackets.  Having got that done I checked the rocker oil feeds for oil-tightness while there was access as I had a problem at Easter. All was good. There was a leak on the exhaust. I thought it was the heat exchanger but it turned out to be the joints needing reseating. Also I put some silicone sealant on the gaps at the front of the exchanger to stop any free exhaust gases from getting in the cab. It had been quite smelly on the last trip.

We had a trip to Bristol in the C3 for my Sister-in-Laws’ funeral. On the way we went via Yeovil to drop the gearbox and parts off a Ric Pembro’s for assembly. Gita and I had set aside the whole week for family and any jobs we needed to do. The funeral was quite beautiful with a non-religious service celebrating her life marked by a poem of love written and spoken by one of her cousins. Yet again being so close to death and understanding your own mortality I have been stirred into more action. A book from the grandchildren “A gift from us to you for us”.  They want me to tell the stories of my childhood and my adulthood of me and my family before it all gets lost in the mists of time and poor memories. I confess, I don’t think I’ll ever finish it as my memories merge with theirs.

It was another French car day at Blackbushe Airport. I left early but got snarled up in traffic on the A312 just down the road from my house and languished in the queue before I could get out of the traffic and go through Hayes  to pick up the M4. Once on the motorway it was a relatively quick trip. It was great to meet up with members of the Thames Tortoises as there no longer seems to be monthly club meetings. The day had started in lovely sunshine  and deteriorated to cloud and cold drizzle. I left early to keep ward. I was beeped at by a kind gentleman who told me I had a flat tyre on the slip road of junction 3 of the M4. No sooner as I was on the A312 the tyre was completely flat. I found a place to stop just before the roundabout and changed the wheel. Another kind gentleman stopped to give me assistance but it was not needed. The flat was caused by a perished valve that had lasted less than three years.  

Two tyres and valves were changed when they were fitted in 2022 before going to Spain. I had a rest day on Sunday and Monday I was heading for the tyre place that had changed and fitted the tyres in 2022 but ran again into the traffic jam that was still there from Saturday and I abandoned the gripe mission and went to another tyre place that has more reliable services. A successful morning and with grandchildren staying with us little more could be done that day. Managed to repair one of the suspension cans. They are too good to cut down as a temporary solution for the van. Painted them the next day. After a couple of wet days it was fine enough to take the Buell for a run out. A forty mile trip, a tense ride. It was a journey into the unknown as problems had side-lined  it for a year. A good shakedown run with everything working as it should and the engine getting smoother as every mile passed. It was still dry in the afternoon to fit the suspension cans to the van to get them out of the garage.

September 2025

 

September 2025

 Surprisingly Observed Sunday was moved from the first Sunday of the month to the last Sunday of August. There was an observers training course that could not be rescheduled so something had to change. The changed meant I could not attend the shop as I was on a family holiday in Barcelona with the grandchildren. I was busy doing DIY in youngest daughter’s flat in between relaxing and site-seeing. When I got home it was time to write the August posting and articles about the bike ride in Arunachal and my view about electric bicycles and scooters another form of Powered Two Wheelers (PTW). I had the MOT for the Kawasaki and it passed, so good for another year and chased up the progress of the repairs on the Buell. Having changed my PC the program for my Kodak printer was lost. It was too old for Windows 10 and no longer supported. I have a twelve year old notebook that runs on Windows 7 and I loaded the software from, the original disc and it worked. I am no longer using it for printing but it is excellent for scanning far better than my Cannon MP272 that does the printing.

At the beginning of the month I was doing work in the garden getting things tidied up before autumn and winter removing dead plants and digging up an anti-social bamboo that was spreading around my garden and a wisteria that had taken over the front of the house.

The left side screen had dropped at the British Motor Show and had no idea why was it the heat or an attempted break-in? I investigated by removing the under-wing protective shields that I made after some rust removing and painting on the sub-frame. I had not looked at it since then and that was 2016. All was good. The support for the windscreen was in good order so there was no structural reason for the change in position of the side screen. The right side screen is still in the position when it was first fitted and has much more use than the left one. I made them both and I know how strong they are.

I was on a mission to be at Registers Day. I had parts to buy at the event and be part of the show. Registers Day is on the Sunday of the two day event. I drove down to Bristol on the Saturday and stayed with my brother Adrian. We went together to be day visitors on the Sunday at Westbury on Severn. We chose the scenic route which was delightful going over the old Severn bridge passing through Chepstow, Lydney, Blakeney and Newnham. It turned out to be a successful event with more cars putting on a display than I had seen before.

 I managed to talk to Paul who is Mehari Registrar for 2CV GB and I ask him about the article I has written about making the new hood for the El Cid as he had not publish anything in the magazine for months.  The article would be coming soon as life had taken over and left little time for anything else. Coops was also there and I spoke to him a new cover for the Burton. I had a great time talking to Paul’s son about the hood and my adventures in India I did not manage to pick up the spares I needed for the El Cid. There was to prize giving for the best car or variant in their class. I didn’t win anything for the El Cid and we headed off back to Chipping Sodbury around four taking the taking the M5 from Chepstow dipping in and out of the Welsh 20mph speed limits before escaping back to England.

Monday had us visiting Martin of Cotswold Classics to pick up some large diameter suspension cans then on to Simon for a better left front wing in Cam. The old one had too many rust holes and was too bad to repair. Next moth there will be more on the van.

I had my laptop with me and did more on my family history for the grandchildren. T hey had given me a Christmas present a sort of diary to record all I could remember of my family and their activities in a book “Dear Grandad from you to me”. This will more than fill the book. I have 20 years work of regular articles in the LE club magazine, nearly 300 postings on my blog and that is only about bikes and cars. I have written nothing about my working life in NHS Pathology.

On Wednesday Barry, Adrian and me went to Bristol and visited Vee Shed which is situated in Bristol docks with the “Matthew” moored in front of it. A brotherly expedition to the cultural centre of local history. It had become a more people oriented museum and less of local industrial history.

 They still have some displays like the Peckett steam engine, a Douglas Dragon Fly, a Thanet bicycle, the Brabazon made at Filton also where Concorde first flew from. I saw it take off from where I lived on Shortwood Hill. I could see Mangotsfield in the valley and across Filton all the way to the Severn Bridge and the Welsh hills beyond. All of the old stuff was in storage and we talked to one guy who was restoring a goods van that had become weather damaged. He was hoping to have it repaired for the up and coming event on the docks in about a weeks’ time. We paid a visit to the Brompton shop for Adrian to have a look at some new bicycles and then to Weatherspoons for lunch before making our way home on the bus.

An uneventful journey home the next day and the week finished with me refitting the weather shields to the under wings which was more difficult than taking the off. I had to make an extended spanner to reach the nuts hidden by the wing and the length of the plates. My hands are bigger now and not as flexible to get in the space available and hold a spanner.

August 2025

 

August 2025

 

A few things I forgot from last month but need to be recorded in my things done one was repairing a bangle. The string had become detached at one end so the securing crimp needed opening up, the string repositioned and crimped up again. It is not much, but it is fiddly.

I have a need to fit cameras to the Kawasaki. They are to record my journeys to give a snapshot of where I am. I have a cheapo Kitvision which is almost disposable and used on the bike in India and a more expensive Sport DV that I have had for years and works very well on Windows Ten which it never did on Windows Seven. The problem is where to fit them on the Kawasaki. I have decided to use the mirror stalks which seem to work for both types of camera. A special one had to be made to match the shape of the stalk for the Kitvision. I fashioned a suitable shape from glass fibre filler to make it more stable and less bouncy.

Observed Sunday was a little different this month having the meeting at Normandy Village Hall. This is near Guildford and further to go for me but it unleashes more country roads to practice on. It also meant we had to bring the Club shop with us. John managed it perfectly whereas my input was minimal having had Tom-tom fail through poor connections I needed to use my phone. With road closures and no idea where to go it was a fraught journey and I arrived an hour late. I did my photo shoot to capture the day and returned home to replace the in-line fuse and holder for the power socket on the Kawasaki.

The following weekend we took a trip to Chipping Sodbury for Folk Night at the Beaufort and staying with my brother for a few days. Another enjoyable event although traffic slowed the journeys to and from.

A few days later it was time for the British Motor Show at Farnborough Airport. A massive event and with incredible hot weather except the Saturday where no sun was seen or even blue sky. I had committed to showing the El Cid for the three days and delivered the car to the show on the Thursday with Gita picking me up and delivering me back there on the Sunday to collect it. I was there Friday and Saturday going on the Kawasaki and Sunday and met some remarkable people among them was Celia Watson a spritely octogenarian who is editor of the Triple the official journal of The Motor Cycling Club. She is also member of 2CVGB as am I. Celia gave me a copy of the Triple and I sent her my “To the top of the world” article. I have now read the Triple and found the exploits of members with standard and modified to be inspiring. Perhaps I will do a trial myself. At the show there are always people who want to know about your car and your escapades with it. I walked around the show many times and took lots of photos of things that interested me like the AA stand with its historical vehicles, the Army Motorcycle stand, Disabled Bikers, and the 2CV racing stand.

Service of the Kawasaki at Traxden Motorcycles. Done in a few hours and picked it up that evening. Hopefully all will be well for the MOT at the beginning of September. Adrian bought a Brompton bicycle on eBay and I agreed to pick it up as it was Hounslow. Then there was the C3 service in Aylesbury then a Chieveley swop to deliver the bike to him coinciding with an evening meal at Ye Olde Red Lion. Good meal too. I took the EL Cid to Blackbushe airport on Saturday morning for the French Car meeting.Many of the people had been at the Motor Show exhibiting their cars and an opportunity
to have a post mortem on the event.

The cat went in the Cattery on Bank Holiday Monday and Tuesday Gita and I were on a plane to Barcelona to be with the grandchildren who were on holiday there.