Green Green Grass of Home

To use the title of one of Tom's best hits and by coincidence, one of Mum's favourite songs, its time to go return to the 'Green Green Grass of Home'

And we are ready....

So first night en route back is spent like last year in Teruel only occupying more space of course...

Later in the day and after driving in the high 30's we discover both wheel hub covers are missing to the tune of approx £200.00 in replacement costs. We put it down to the extreme heat expanding the hub assembly and losing both caps in transit but I'm not sure as there's also the possibility that they now adorn some Spanish kid's bedroom wall

I'm sure they are on in this early morning photo though

Next time here I'll take them off before retiring to be sure....

The drive up through France is quite pleasant and the route avoiding tolls is actually easy going and the RV behaves impeccably

Our last night is spent at Bergues and a wander in to town is the order of the day to sample a few Belgian beers...

Wow, check the bill here..

Where's my yellow vest?

A short stroll through the previously unexplored part of town sees us stumbling upon a Craft Beers outlet with some very sensible pricing structuring

Poor Nina had this lot on her lap in the chair all the way back to the site

A hop and a skip after the ferry and we are back near Emilja & Richard's at Thurston on the very nice Dell Touring Park and we get to RV with the family

A few days later we are taken to visit the wedding venue at hedingham Castle where they will be married next June

Huge excitement for everyone especially the girls of course

The ceremony will take place in the huge tower behind

Hopefully on the day Nina will proudly walk up the spiral stone staircase and avoid her now customary bum shuffle technique

She make it though and we are bowled over by the beauty of the place

Back in the Manor the pianist gets the practice done

I say "Croquet anyone"

The layout and ambience is excellent and we all leave with high hopes for a great day next year

A random picture of a guy with an adventure bike...not really

Let me explain...

To my amazement and very shortly after her op back in December last year Nina gave me the nod to start researching a replacement for Max as he'd been written off by the insurance company

So a deposit was laid down in early April and collection from Reiten Motorrad was made soon after our arrival back in Blighty

We went with a new BMW R1250 GS TE Exclusive...Ta Da!

We both have very expensive full suits with matching laminate suits to boot all to Level 2 protection standards. The bike accessories were all obtained from Touratech in Alicante at a far cheaper cost than the UK equivalent

This procurement took many visits in Spain to the suppliers so we were kept busy over there which made time pass too thankfully

Nina with 'Gus'

(Well he needs a name doesn't he!)

A few days later I have a twin Innov K2 camera system fitted to Gus to capture the antics of the Muppets out there on the road

A leap of faith with the installer removing lots of gear and panels from the bike but its worth it

The plan when Nina is online is to travel as before but also tour on the bike from the RV staying overnight for several days enabling us to see the countries at length and enjoy the freedom of the open road. 

I have my courageous wife to thank for getting us this far.....