Out with 2009 and bring on 2010

How do you say 2010? I mean we said 2k1 to 2k9 or Oh-Nine but 2k10 or One-Oh doesn't realy have that ring to it, oh well I guess until something crops up natural like I am going to go with Two-Ten for now.

So before we condemn 2K9 to the annuls of our memory lets summerise what it meant for us...

Grand children.The biggest piece of news has to be the birth of Lj Wendys 1st GrandSon which has generated some 4 trips to the Uk during the latter quater but what a charmer he is becoming and shout well you know what I mean... And the expected Birth of a baby Girl to Billy and Lissy making 3 GrandSons and 2 GrandDaughters on my side

So on with the other news...

RidersRest Bikers Only B&B in the Central Massif...

What a superb year we have enjoyed with the B&B, we trebeled our visitors in 2009 which gave us a massive increase in visitors. We also took advantage of offering "Guided Tours" as part of what we do and charge for as opposed to me just taking people out for rides. This has been really successful so in 2010 we will continue and grow this type of activity. We now feel that we are "Out there" in the right places and more people are begining to hear about us and what we have to offer. We are very pleased with the feedback we have been given by our guests, which motivates us to carry on with the business. Feedback can be viewed here --> http://ridersrest.eu/guests.aspx

It has been a hard year though for Wendy who had all the cooking to do, Breakfasts and Evening meals. Which incidently were superb, I cannot think of one occassion where the food was not spot on and never saw a single meal left. Hey we even saw grown men eat vegitables and enjoy them... The riding was even better in 2009 than in 2008, we had found many more places to ride to of interest and via some superb biking roads. I even got a website up to show some of those routes at http://www.motomassif.info/ contains most of the routes, maps, photos etc. SO here are some photo's of some of those ride outs and places we visited the rest can be viewed at http://www.whereistonynow.co.uk/ or http://www.whereiswendynow.co.uk/

Oradour Sur Glane:

Lac Vassiviere:

Agentat, Collonges La Rouge, Dordogne Valley:

Rocamadour, Guoffre de Padirac:

Cantal Volcano Puy Mary:

Auvergne Volcano Puy De Dome:

Mount Dore - Super Besse:

Millau Viaduct:

Chateaux Various:

We have had our share of reasons to be stressed 1.. 2.. 3.. so in no particualr order.
To Bee or not to bee... We were infested by wild honey bees, 100's of thousands of them to be fair all living in our chimney there were at least 4 Queens, Wendys first action was to light a fire which just pissed them off and sent them airbourne, the hause became full almost immediately. by the time I returned home with a group of our guests the road and house was alive with the bloody things, luckily no one was bitten.

A local authority on Bees came and advised us to use a poison gas which which came in sticks to burn in the fire. we did this and killed off thousands of the poor things but failed to dislodge the Queens all they did was move outside onto the edge of the chimney, once dusk arrived the swarm settled down for the night, so we hosed them off the roof.

Come morning we were left with a small community of them which I had to finally climb up the roof to get rid of them as they had now worked their way into the fabric of the roof and were re grouping. after 3 days a battle we were rid of them, they are now nesting in a hole under a tree not too far from the bike wash down but sufficiently far enough.

Salamander anyone? We did of course get our fair share of other visitors such as this Salamanda which found its way into the kitchen even though all the doors and windows were locked and it was in December so not very warm... Certainely surprised Wendy as we hadn't seen one so big before.

Water everywhere but not a drop to drink. The mains pressure rose to approx 9Bar and blew of the mains pipe to our meter sadly our side of the meter and was able to vent onto the road for approx 5 hours what a waste of water and subsiquentially monies too. This in turn blocked our fosse drain off with silt and backed up all our showers and toilets... needless to say we didn't take any pictures but it was an interesting time digging everywhere to find and clear all the pipeworks from the Fosse, at least now I know where they all are and have put in new pipes where they had broken and put in rodding point to make it easier should there ever be another occassion where they need unblocking.

A New Car or two... Wendy had a slight accident in the car, wrote it off in August quite convinsingly whilst on her way to meet up with an English chap who made his own bacon...

It was a good excuse to get a new car more suitable to carrying people - namely a 9 seater Hyundi Satellite nice and big... Plus as a bonus Wendy also got an MX-5 for her 50'th Birthday to replace the one we sold pror to coming over here. Should make it easier for her to get out and do the shopping in a safer and more enjoyable way... at least.

A New Road up to RidersRest for 2010 In October we were visited by a very keen man from the Marie keen that was to get us to agree to giving up a couple of hundred meters worth of land about 2 meters wide so they could improve the road leading up from the main D16 to Le Theil, this means that we will see a wider and resurfaced road in place of the old rural cambered, pot holed, gravel strewn manky road that had prevented us using it with bikes as it was not really up to it. So we signed it and now hope for a good road for our customers and our use alike. To be honest anything they do will be an improvement and to our benifit.

Winter Time Like the UK we have been having our fair share of wintery weather, and were snowed into Le Theil for 8 days before we were able to get into toen by aid of Mark and kays 4x4. Some pctures tell the tale...

Fuel delivery on the 1st day of our being snowed in - he didn't want to come up to us but we insisted it was an emergency, I had to dig him out when he slid and couldn't get it moving again, we took 989 Ltrs of domestique fuel and are warm - thank you...