InvictaMoto's On The Road Again!

Today we had a drive up to the White Cliffs of Dover for a walk with Reggie. We parked on the first level above the visitor centre and then went along the cliff top above the ferry port and then up the path towards Langdon Cliff. My phone buzzed a few times and I ignored it. But. It was simply texts from Three UK informing me about being in France... Except we were in England. France is about 24 miles away... So lucky my SIM-only contract allows me to make calls and use data in places all over the globe using my £17 a month!! A message from April after we got back from Florida shows a remarkable saving. WOW!! I have no idea how accurate that is but although I have been outside the UK a few times since I've not had another text like it.

Last night Claire and I went to the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury for our annual visit for the pantomime. This year it was Mother Goose.  Mother Goose As usual the "Dame" was Ben Roddy - "The Fat Bloke in a Dress". The production is always excellent. There can't be many pantos that have a range of music that involves a version of Hendrix's Foxy Lady.  Once again it was superb. Oh no it wasn't!  Oh yes it was! The Cast

The day the chavs from Chelsea come to town, or at least to the Emirates. After a less than spectacular start to the season we entertain the former billionaire toy in Chelsea. From spending hundreds of millions on players to win trophies they seem to have been reluctant recently to spend. Shame.  They are still fourth in the table where we are twelfth.  With games against Everton and Bournemouth only drawn the idea of entertaining Chavs today and Manchester United on New Year's Day is daunting. All made worse as getting to the game today as there is no High Speed service to London. The usual 57 minute journey will be 1h 42m on slow train. Then a longer two tube trip to Arsenal. As a treat I booked first class. With Railcard discount  only a few quid more than having to rub shoulders with the hoypolloy. Before anyone comments, I am joking... So here we are.  Lost again. The high spots were Aubameyang scoring another league goal, plus a h...

The reshuffle means that the shorter route through Switzerland means that the motorway vignette won't be needed. I'll have to see though.  To take in the passes will be a reversed S through the mountains. There are so many passes and too few days to fit them all in. This route (above) takes in the Nufenenpass (2 above). This is the highest paved pass in Switzerland.

Day 9 has changed. It was formerly the day we drove up from Lucca to Como.  I wanted to squeeze in a trip to Bologna. So I did. The journey is only around 85 miles toll-free. The hotel is walking distance to the centre and the station. This means that I had to shuffle the proceeding stops on a day. As I found out previously, the booking assistant at booking.com couldn't do a change of date for Como. So to add a day meant cancelling all the stays and rebooking them a day later! I was able to sort out Como. Although on the booking site there were only two rooms left. Booked. Day 10 will be the drive up from Bologna to Como. I had planned to squeeze in a visit to the Moto Guzzi museum but it is closed all off August from the 3rd onwards!  Instead there is Modena.  The Enzo Ferrari Casa and Museum The Panini car museum The Stanguellini car museum The Maserati Show Room And a little further away, Lamborghini. So many supercars! What had been Day 11 has become Day 12. I ha...

With imminent trips to France in 2020, I thought I'd see what areas I was planning to travel to and whether they need the air certificate to go there.  I entered all the details into the official website and was rewarded with a Level 2 pass. There are six levels. The "best" being for electric vehicles.  The Insignia is in the same category as the Rocket. Yay.  Unlike the ULEZ in London where the Mayor charges £12.50 a day for cars that fail the pollution test, Crit'Air has a ban on all vehicles by category. Pay to pollute alive and well in London.

Tomorrow.

It's fatal. Planning and then seeing another "must see" or "must visit" place on a website or in this case, a book. Once I turned to trip 1 and 2 in the Andermatt area and saw even more passes I haven't bagged previously. I had to include the Susten Pass in my route. This may mean that the 40CHF vignette becomes an option or more like a necessity.  I know the purists will scoff at the thought of using the motorway for any part of a journey. Even though it's in the car and not the bike I can still hear them. Yep. Ignore the knobheads. So this looks like a four pass session. In MyRouteApp I have changed Part One to two bits. The first part as far as Airolo from Como will tolls turned to on. The second part will go non-toll through the passes: St Gotthard  - 2106m Furka  - 2429m Grimsel  - 2164m Susten  - 2260m On the map and in the book they all look like a lot of hairpin bends .. Fun. With 7 months to go before we set off there could be many changes to co...

The footnote to the release of the new 2.5L Rockets. It ought to be better in every way.  Mine was £11000 and 5 months old when I bought it in June 2015. As tested these are nigh on £20000!

Let sleeping dogs lie!!

So the options seem to be between: A long day in the "saddle" as it were arriving later than usual at the hotel in Lenzkirch in the Black Forest Cutting Lenzkirch for a shorter day and booking a hotel further south Reverting to Plan A and miss out the Furka and Grimsel passes Cut one day from Como and have a stop in Switzerland nearer the passes! Buy the bloody motorway vignette In the end after checking hotel booking sites options 2 to 4 seemed to fade away.   Switzerland is more expensive than I want to pay for hotels.  After coming this far missing out the passes simply isn't on. Como to the passes is only 81 miles. So it looks like it will be the long day. I haven't ruled out the vignette for the motorways though.   I'll make an alternative Day 10 in MyRouteApp to see how that pans out. It adds expense but with Option 2 looking like £50 a night more for a hotel with the same level of comfort, inclusive breakfast and free parking as Lenskirch, it makes the 40...

Planning continues. Recently there was "discussion" on a biking Facebook page about planning a trip to France.  The original poster was merely asking whether it was wiser to plan ahead for a visit in August 2020.  Once the observer had discounted all the "I wouldn't go to France" posts, then the "just go" posts it seemed from the sensible brigade, planning was a little over 75% of the responses. I tend to over plan. Especially in peak holiday/vacation periods. I have "been there done it" when it comes to parking up and trying hotel or B&B's to get a room for the night. It becomes the driving force to the afternoon. Gotta get to Xxxxx to get a room! The worst was arriving in Seville, it was mid-afternoon. The temperature was over 40°C. We tried several hotels and received the "no room at the inn" signs. It was mid-August.  We were hot and fed up. We ended up in a four star hotel that had air-conditioning and a cold shower.  A...

A change of plan. I have added a second night in the Albergo in Como. It had to be done.  According to the font of all knowledge, Google, there is much to see in and around Como.  It will give us a chance to take in the lakeside town and maybe even a boat trip. The lake seems to have an abundance of  ferries that criss-cross it. And it has a funicular! Oo-er missus! It was a bit of a palaver as through the booking assistant on booking.com it wouldn't let me change dates. Instead I had to book a room for two nights and then cancel the one night stay! Hopefully the hotel will have picked up on my request for a reserved and free parking space... From Como the plan will be to head home. It's about 800 miles! Switzerland lies directly in the way. The Swiss have an extremely expensive vignette scheme for anyone using their highways of 40CHF for the year.  There's no discount for when you buy it. Whether on January 1st or 31st December it's 40 francs. Unlike Austria they do...

A little more planning under my belt.  From Part One where we ended up in Nice, I thought our long planned and cancelled trip to Tuscany could be revived and included.  So. After two nights in Nice we head along the Med back into Italy and the Ligurian coast to Tuscany. It's only 200 miles with things to see en-route. The next destination is  Lucca . I have booked three nights here. The car can have a rest whilst we use the trains to get to Pisa and Florence.  Then where? I do like the idea of Bologna and shoehorning this in might be hard work as I have an overnight already booked in Como.  The original hotel had a problem with my MasterCard and cancelled the booking. They didn't give me much chance and so I decided to take care of it and book another one. This seemed a stroke of luck as it is better and has free parking. So then where?

Live at Wembley Stadium. One of my favourite bands of all time. A final chance to see them live? Tickets bought on the pre-sale.

It's early but I might forget or simply lose interest later in the month... Ho bloody ho

The start of the Christmas games sees us at home to Manchester City, the current league champions.   For a number of years since they were bought out by the Middle-East Oil Barons we never really considered them to be anything other than "just another game".  Their years of mediocreness came to an end with the arrival of the billionaires. Contrary to what Arsene Wenger maintained - money does buy success in football.  Manchester United mixed talent from their academy and scouting youths with potential with big buys.  They try to deny it but £30 million for Rio Ferdinand? Once Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea the same happened. A billion or more spent on players which resulted in trophies that they had rarely had hold of or had been in touching distance from!  In fact 50 years between league championships. Until 2005 I had never seen them raise the trophy at the end of a season, as they won it seven months before I was born! The City came along...

Polling stations closed as 10pm. Voting done and dusted for the 4th General Election in 5 years. The exit polls suggest the Conservatives will win by a country mile.  We'll see tomorrow when most of the constituencies will have finished their counting and returned their results. Update. December 13th. 7.30am.  We now have a Conservative government with an 80 seat majority in the House of Commons.  It seems the public decided to "Get Brexit Done" rather than accept all the offers of free broadband, nationalising the power companies and railways and a whole host of pre-election promises of the opposing parties. We'll see.  

For about 70 minutes it looked like another #ARSBHA evening. 2-0 down until 18yo Saka firstly crossed for Lacazette to head in from close range on 78 mins. Then on 81 mins, coming in off the left wing, a one-two with 18yo Martinelli, before bending the ball into the bottom corner for 2-2. We top the Europa League group as Eintracht lost to Vittoria. Phew. Highlights

The proverbial game of two halves. Arsenal woeful in the first half. West Ham a little better but lacked the fire power or quality to press ahead with their slight advantage. Former Gunner turned pundit Alan Smith seemed to suggest on Sky Sports that Cresswell's heavy challenge on Pepe was "testing the resolve of the player". Replays on TV showed that Cresswell was airborne, i.e. both feet off the ground as he crunched into Pepe. He got the ball but the follow through was unpleasant. This is usually considered a red card challenge.  Not to referee Mike Dean. Not even a yellow or even a free kick.  This of course set a precedent. On 29 minutes and an awkward fall for Tierney saw him exit with a shoulder injury. He was replaced by Sead Kolasinec, who wasn't in the original starting squad and who was then promoted to the bench with an injury to Bellerin in the warm-up. It was inevitable that the Hammers would score first.  It came from a ...

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My brother Neill saw this mug on Amazon and thought I could add to my Christmas list.   I have so many mugs that Claire keeps complaining.  I have four in use at work that I rotate my way around. Three in my locker and one in use, then wash, and choose another. Maybe it's true. 

The weekend showed how weak the battery has become.  Having had to use the dbPower unit on four separate occasions during the day in Belgium was the giveaway. We are in the second winter of this problem where the battery isn't strong enough to start the bike. In the summer it charges and holds that charge and although I keep the dbPower unit to hand I rarely have to use it.  But in winter it barely has the power to turn the engine over. It's simply "clunk". The lights come on though and that probably doesn't help. So what to do? Being a fair weather biker nowadays I won't be using the bike that often until the new year. Do I get a new battery sooner rather than later? It might end up freezing away in the garage. I have a garage in a block away from the house with no power, so a trickle charger is no use either. I have been looking at a replacement though.  A  Motobatt  with a high cranking power should be around £75. So unlikely to break the bank. But when to ...

Third round FA Cup draw tonight. Arsenal have been drawn at home to Leeds United.  "Dirty Leeds" as we knew them as in the 1970's. The dirtiest foulest team in England.

Well. It was a case of Emery Out.  The caretaker manager is Freddie Ljunberg. He was assistant to Dick and has been promoted with Dick's removal. So what did we expect for Freddie's first game with no time to get his message over? Much the same. More life though but a couple of clangers and two goals conceded and another 2-2 draw.  We have now drawn 2-2 with the bottom three. A wonderful record. Next up. Brighton at home in Thursday for Amazon Prime's first game since they paid a fortune to show games. Let's hope there is an improved performance and defence!!

Time for the "mo to go"! I achieved my goal this year. I had set it quite low and thanks to a few good friends I made it. Thanks to everyone.