On the Road Again!

It's Day 24 of " Take the Lead " where Reggie and I walk to try and raise money for the charity St Mungo's. I put our names down for a mere 26 miles in April, using the Strava app to keep a record of the walks.  But. I keep forgetting to start it. Or worse, turn it off after a walk, then having to delete it, thus losing genuinely acquired miles!!! This was the case last week.  Turned on when I left Arsenal station, and off when I got back there. All good. Then after walking to the train I forgot and it came out at 78 miles!!! The three genuine miles lost. So how about a donation to a good cause? Justgiving will take any currency.... A single £ or $ or € will be appreciated. Paul & Reggie's Fundraising Page . As well as donating you can see updates on our progress.

With the car in the garage for its annual service, we decided to take the bus into Folkestone. The journey takes about 30 minutes. Thanks to being senior citizens we travel free on buses after the time people will be going to work and school. We got the bus around 1030. POSH. Anyone remember that? We live on the South coast of England. Folkestone is only about 5 miles to the east.  So "port out, starboard home" is the order of the day. If you know, you know. Firstly, a stop in Boots for Claire to use up some vouchers, and then down the Old High Street. The Old High Street has lots of blue plaques explaining what businesses occupied each building in the 19th and 20th centuries. It's now very arty now, and the plaques show that it used to be where the working class lived and worked. A stop at a bakery to get a huge cheese scone and a cake that looks like a pork pie.... Our next port of call was the bus stop at the bottom of the hill by the harbour. T...

Back to the late 90's. Two buffaloes at Woburn Abbey.....

I guess we have to be thankful that we got three years use out of this Belgian pet passport. We had a couple of AHC's in 2022 and 2023 before we got this one in Bruges. It saved us around £400 in AHC's over the intervening years. The EU has sealed the loophole that allowed us in Great Britain have one to travel. But they seem to have dropped the usual bollock when it comes to having 27 countries fall into place and publish details properly. For our SP26 trip we already have an AHC and this pet passport will record his rabies jabs. The AHC will need completing by a different vet before we come home.

The nail hit on the head. Don't fall for the bullshit. As soon as you see an award ceremony, you know it's a mutual arse kissing event, and a chance for some actor to talk shite. Make your own minds up, don't listen to some "elitist" that is paid to play a part.

Reggie recently. Another complication to the trip is that Reggie's rabies vaccination needs re-doing before June 20th 2026. When we had the original dates for the holiday, I was going to get both his pre-return worming and the rabies done in Belgium a day or two before we came home. On top of that we have the enforcing of the rules surrounding the use of EU pet passports for those non resident in an EU country. That means us British, and or course, any EU citizens that live most of the time outside an EU country. So we have a £99 Animal Health Certificate that cost me another £47.50 to change the date and language, and the rabies needing to be done. I had already booked a vet's surgery in a nearby town, San Vicente de la Barquera, to do the rabies jab. They quoted €40.  Our own vet where Reggie has been going since we had him quoted £140! At today's exchange rate that's €160! So we are pretty much set. Of course, a lot of the trip we will embark on depends on Trump...