¡InvictaMoto!

It's five weeks since we brought the boy Reggie home. He seems to have made himself at home and some of his "asbo" traits have not manifested themselves as badly (or at all) as they told us when we signed up!  However, he does have a few other little peccadilloes that they didn't mention: He likes to chew the mail.  He likes to  rip up random pieces of paper He reacts badly to other dogs on leads but not running loose! The last is odd as you would think he would be more worried/nervous about other dogs running free when he is on the lead! We have a little list to share with the behaviourist from the Dog's Trust.  As part of the re-homing process they give support for the dog's life.

And so it soon became the 13th December and Dora went to Laguna to have the latest "service bulletin" to be sorted. The side stand bolt. The weather was around 2°C when I set off so I decided to stick to the main roads and the motorway rather than the back roads across the top of the Marsh.   Once booked in a went across the road for a bacon sandwich and a coffee.  The job was done so quickly that I had barely got sat down when my phone chirruped with an SMS to say it was done!   I wasn't in any hurry. The pub was cold as well, but not a patch on the outside world. Dora was parked outside and I took a photo quickly and then togged up and rode home. Heated grips on full power.

In the end, me and Döra didn't make it to Ostend. The weather turned very cold and icy and a 6am start didn't make any sense. So, Döra stayed tucked up in the garage and I had to re-book my crossing for another time.

Bereft! I felt like I was cutoff from the world! My 5S has been powering itself off at odd times since the iOS 8 upgrade. It isn't a battery problem, as it had been as high as 47% charged. On Wednesday evening it turned itself off at 27% and when I turned it on the Apple logo stayed on the screen. I went online when I got home and found that this is called "recovery mode". I followed the instructions on Apple's website and it didn't work.  What to do. I had little luck with O2 online and ended up booking an Apple Genius. Just in case I called into the O2 shop in Folkestone and they managed quite easily to reset it back to factory setup. All that means I needed to was attach to my iTunes and restore my data. After the first stage it looked a bit dodgy as it seemed to have lost all my apps and data associated with them. So I left it to sync again.... Fingers crossed.

Movember is over. Another year of growing a moustache is over. This year I did a little better than last year and raised £180.  I am hoping that someone that offered to pay a few quid will get their donation in before the cut off date of December 9th. Thanks to everyone that donated. It is a good cause and if by looking a bit of a berk for a month (silence at the back!) can help fund research that will bring an end to cancer, not just in men but everyone, then we have done good!!

I heard on the grapevine that there was another "service bulletin" to dealers for the Explorer. This one concerns the side stand bolt failing and the bike tumbling into the weeds. I  contacted  my  dealer ,  Laguna  in Ashford, and they  confirmed  that D öra is in the VIN range and needs to be booked in ASAP. As I am in Ostend this weekend for the St Nicks Rally it has to be the week after. So I have booked her in for 0930 on the 13th. Fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong this weekend. Although saying that, I do tend to use the main stand wherever possible. It is so much easier using the luggage if the bike is upright.