S-Westerly

Read in the papers that when they have a launch people who live in the area are evacuated. Presumably house prices are low and insurance unobtainable!

I applied for my passport first and did it all on line. My wife took the photo using my mobile phone. Once I had the new passport I applied for the drivers licence and the same photo was used. For both documents it took two weeks. I was pleasantly surprised!

Thought they were ace and sooo much better than floppy discs. Or CDR's etc.

It's the same in the usa which was one of the reasons for the appeal of Trump. Too much crumbling infrastructure of basic things like roads, hospitals, railways etc. PFI was a failure as government is hopeless generally at making commercial agreements. Maybe after the pandemic there will be fresh ways of doing things, like the vaccine programme which looks like a success so far. But I won't hold my breath!

Honestly believe this will happen but by private individuals like Musk and Branson. Governments are too risk averse and bogged down in bureaucratic red tape.

Same vintage as your bikes then?

100% agreement with the above. As I've said before the occasional gravel road yes but "green laning" or mud-plugging? Never in a million years.

Good for road rash if nothing else.

I'd agree with that. If I was to win the lottery and be in a position to do the Trans America Trail I'd probably not do it on anything bigger than a 450. In the real world I use my mutley as a long distance bike and enjoy it.

I like my 225 kg (wet) multistrada. Do I need it - probably no. Do I take it off road - other than the odd gravelled track - definitely no. Do I really love riding it in just about any weather - very definitely yes. So long as I can horse it around on the odd occasion I need to I won't be getting rid of it, it's just too much fun.

Congratulations! A nice feeling having your own place. Got our first one in 1983 after 4 years in rented flat. Still remember how good it felt. Brand new house so the garden wasn't- just a field of mud. Had virtually no furniture and most of that was hand me downs. Still it was ours and made us feel we were achieving something.

Our last BMW was a high end 3 series. At about 4 years of age its gearbox failed. Dealers replaced it and only charged labour. Replacement was refurbished box and apparently there were known issues. Got rid within the year.

Well good luck. Won't mention the last minute horror stories we've endured! All resolved satisfactorily but so uncessary had people done their jobs right in the first place.

Some of the potholes around here are ridiculous. As long as I avoid the long narrow ones they are worse for the car than the bike. Unfortunately I have a long narrow one on a bend about 100 metres from my home on a road I must use.

I don't commute but I use my XL whenever I'm out and so far it's done alright even in quite heavy rain. None yet as heavy or as prolonged as that which killed my 4K but we shall see.

Motown is my particular dislike along with most punk.

I think you'll find it's both ends are screwed up. What a surprise!

Bet that wouldn't happen if it was our vaccines going the other way! Also how come you can import stuff from the US or China without any problems but all of a sudden the EU is just one big problem?

Us too, I can hardly bear the excitement of it all.

No, she just has a thing against bikes. She won't ride with my son or son in law either. Spent years as a nurse working in a Leonard Cheshire home with several residents paralysed after offs.

Mine refuses point blank to ever ride with me so it's never an issue!

Of course I never exceed the speed limit. It was on sale and was really cheap.

Due to alarm light on display went to Ducati Worcester to get it sorted. All credit to them as they managed to reassure me the lamp was nothing significant but they couldn't clear it as their diagnostic system went down and wouldn’t be up for at least 6 hours. They did offer me a courtesy bike but I'm not available tomorrow to return it. So my bike is back home and will be returned to their care next week hopefully for final fix.

Absolutely, once we get back to something close to normality. Ha f@cking ha!!

Both my wife and I have had blood tests for covid antibodies. We've been signed up for this Bio-science study for about 10 years and I think it came through that.