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On Dec 31st we walked up to the Church and castle ruin above the village of Samitier with 2 of our old South African friends who were staying with us over Christmas. They now live in Scotland so where the weather can be "less nice" at this time of year 🙂
It's a walk we often do and well worth it!
23 hours ago, DJR said:....... They have not improved since then.
Set the bar low and then maintain it hey? 🙂
21 hours ago, Duane_Bosch said:The little circle is where the attack happened. The arrows are the route the perp took into IY. The arrows end where I came to my senses and realized I was unarmed with no flankers headed for ****.
To re iterate. Don't ride past IY under any circumstances. Rather go Empire and onto Valley road. from my understanding there have been at least 3 incidence of this nature on that stretch of road in the last 2 days.
It's literally 50m from a police station and there are cctv cams covering that bit of road. These okes don't give a funk
It looks like the attack happened 100m from SAPS Hout Bay Police Station????
19 hours ago, mecheng89 said:
****! Rider didn't stand a chance
3 hours ago, justinafrika said:There’s an adenovirus-rhinovirus that’s swanning through several continents that is unrelated to Covid or post-covid syndrome. Many healthcare pros are using the diagnosis term 100 days cough. Mine was brutal with such persistent hard coughing that small pieces of my throat surface were being coughed away. Took a few weeks afterwards for the cough to disappear fully.
I can believe the "100 days" bit!
😞
I generally come back to this thread either when I'm pleasantly surprised that I haven't been ill for a long while, or when I do fall ill!
Sadly this is the latter . . . .
I've done a lot of travelling since mid September, Back home to Spain from working in the UK over summer, a trip to the States and back (With "Wendy") and then a trip to the UK for more work before coming back home for Christmas. It seems every time I travel I get a damn cold. There are people sniffing, sneezing and coughing their way on every bus/ train/ plane I use and throughout the airports!
I'm currently getting over a fairly tame head-cold which is turning into a cough that will last for weeks I'm sure. When we came back from the States we both had sore throats/coughs which ended up flooring us for weeks - literally couldn't get out of bed to do more than cook food, then fell asleep again. Tested negative for Covid but I'm convinced we had a variation of it!
This seems to be widespread in Europe and the UK..... perhaps our defences are all low after 2 years of "extreme cleaning" during Covid.
I’m finally back in Spain after several months working away – and I’m just in time for tomorrows “Copa de España de Pumptrack” competition! 🙂
As soon as I get time I’ll post some updates – this year has been crazy busy
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It's been a while since I posted anything on here! So, here are some pics I took in February on a ride a couple of km's from where we live. It was still winter but it was a beautiful day to rise alone up in the mountains. I think I saw I car all afternoon and one farmer - up in the village of Silves!
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We're ok S@B - but thanks for asking!
The last few months have been a bit of a roller-coaster. When you have family scattered literally all over the world things can get complicated and difficult. It's a tough decision to leave your loved ones behind and deliberately move away. Both our parents did it to their families when they moved to SA many years ago and then we did it to them when we moved away from SA back in 2016. You make the decision to leave knowing that, in time, things are going to happen that you'll have to deal with one way or another.
After a good summer of me working on and off in the UK, we went and had a great time in Charlotte with family. We got lots done to their house & garden and spent some good quality time with them all, but a week or so before we were due to leave, my dad back in SA took ill and then passed away. There wasn't any realistic way of getting over there from the US for the funeral, I'm not sure we would have been able to even if we'd been at home in Spain when it happened, so we had to deal with it "from a distance". Everyone was very supportive and with my dads age and health it wasn't a massive surprise - but you still don't expect it to happen.
In early November we got back Spain and started winding down a bit for winter. We were feeling quite content that, dads thing aside, we'd had probably had the best year we've had in a while, particularly in terms of spending quality time with each other and with our various families. Out of the blue we received news that "Wendys" dad back in SA was ill and that it was serious. She went over for three weeks in December to spend time with him and her mum and when she finally left, she had a good idea that she wouldn't see him again. Usually when you leave you hope to see someone again "one day", but when you leave someone who is terminally ill......
He passed away a fortnight ago and she went back to SA again to attend the funeral and spend time with her family. She flew to SA the day I flew over here to the UK to do another batch of work.
In this day and age of such easy communications - high speed internet, WhatsApp video calls and messaging, FB & Insta for photos etc, it's very much easier to be apart and stay in touch than it was 20 years ago and that helps a lot. Still tough times though 😞
I'll post again in a little while and update with our latest plans/thinking re our project . . . meanwhile, hope everybody has a great "Semana Santa" (Easter!)
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8 muggings in a month, so two a week . . . . why would anyone chance even going there with those odds?
Impressive
TP is strong! Can’t see him losing this now.
Before we left SA, we used to drive down fro Jo'burg to ride the "Argus". I can't remember what entry cost 7 years ago, but it was a good 18 hr drive with a couple of quick rest-stops on the way. Several tanks of petrol there and back and a Wimpy at Laingsburg. We were lucky enough to have friends to stay with / ride with in Cape Town and we'd make a week of it, so the trip wasn't just for the bike race.
Happy days, though windy at times! Hope everyone had a safe race this year🙂
I’ve just watched this happen …..
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On 7/6/2022 at 10:07 AM, Hairy said:Would freaking LOVE to go to a Springsteen concert!
We saw him in Jo'burg back in on 4th Feb 2014 at Soccer City. Awesome concert 🙂
So, since I was in no real rush to return to Spain, we've extended my stay here in Charlotte and we fly back together in early November . . . THEN I'll start doing what I can up at our Project in Guaso village.
The weather here is great at the moment, a recent hurricane missed us by a couple of hundred km's - so we got some wind and rain but nothing more. The neighbours are really friendly and helpful which is great as I'm trying to do as many house & garden jobs for the kids as I can while I'm here with a minimum number of tools. Every job I do here I think to myself "Yep, that's something we can do ourselves on our build Project" 🙂
Of course the 16 month old grandson steals the show most of the time 🙂
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As it turned out, the Munich-Charlotte flight was great. The seats reclined enough, the galley area was quiet enough and "Wendy" had an empty seat next to her. The food was good and the staff friendly.
The only issue we had at all, nothing to do with the airline, was turbulence! The flight was fine until about an hour north of Charoltte (west of Boston) where we hit some bumps. Previously we'd been way up above the coluds and it was pretty smooth, suddenly we were skimming over the tops of the clouds, at 40 000ft nogal, and it was scarey rough. The life saver for me - who hates and turbulence with a passion - was the cameras. The Tail-Cam for instance allowed us to see that actually the plane was fine and nothing untoward was going on. Without that outside view I'd have been getting a bit panicky 😮
Our seats for the long haul flight are 42D and E, so we’re next to each other in the very back row where Seat-Guru tells me:
“Seat 42 D is a standard Economy Class seat located in the last row of the aircraft. Seat back recline might be limited. The close proximity to the galley and lavatory area might be bothersome.”
oh joy……
https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Lufthansa/Lufthansa_Airbus_A350-900.php
So we’re on our way from Barcelona in Spain to Charlotte in the States via Munich, flying Lufthansa…. and things are starting to get a bit strange.
we got to the airport last thing last night so we were here when the first check-in desk opened at 3.30am this morning. It’s pretty much as unsociable as it sounds, but never mind. We’re ok with that. However, after checking in for both flights and looking at our seat assignments I see that instead of sitting together, on the short leg to Munich we’re sitting one behind the other in different rows and we both have “middle” 14B and 15B seats. I couldn’t believe that literally everyone else had checked in on-line before us and a quick Google throws up:
“Lufthansa will randomly allocate a seat to you during check-in, potentially leaving you in a middle seat on a short, medium, or even long-haul flight. The €50/$70 'amendment' fee on roundtrip flights could be a huge factor for those choosing between full-service Lufthansa and low-cost airlines on shorter flights.”
So unless you pay the surcharge, you will deliberately be given a middle seat and if there’s two of you you’ll get a middle seat each ….
Today:
After a nice week of R&R back in Spain – hiking, swimming, riding and picnicing – we’re heading off tonight to Barcelona for an early morning flight to the States in the morning.
Our first trip back in 2017 was to NYC – amazing. Last year we were in Denver/Boulder/The Rockies – equally amazing. This trip is to North Carolina. If our daughter and her husband keep moving like this we’re going to get to see all the states! They spoil us rotten when we’re there 🙂
When I get back in a couple of weeks time I’ll be on my own for a month until "Wendy" comes back. A good chance to do some nice long rides and make some progress with our Project. It’ll just be tidying up and maintenance to start with but it always feels so good spending time up there in Guaso.
Last week:
Last weekend was the annual Farmers Market in Aisa, this weekend is a big Fiesta. This evening there will be a show on in the plaza and tomorrow night music and dancing. I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the UK this summer – so missed the Guaso village and Boltana town Fiestas – so this weekend will be nice 🙂
I’m looking forward to chocolate coated Churros!!
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On 8/22/2022 at 7:06 AM, meloncholy01 said:Any feedback on where this happened?
He was completing the practical part of a course to work on yachts apparently and was near a marina. More than that I don't know.
I have an idea for a new thread...
in Chit chat
Posted
We lived just down the road from the hospital in '76/'77. It was open back then and almost new I think. Now 45 years later our friends daughter goes the the high school next door to it -Jeugland - which is where we used to catch the school bus to Sir Pierre 🙂