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...

17 Ride to Timbuktu via Riders Rest

We have ridden India for the WWF, ridden to South Turkey and back for the Jennifer Trust, and of course done the usual Easter, xmas, rides in our area, and putting up a weekend free B&B for 2 for raffles to raise money for NABD and other goood causes...

Back in October 2007 you may remember that I was in the UK collecting a new motorbike - A Moto-Guzzi Stelvio 1200 4V? Well whilst I was away from Ridersrest a Cpl from the 1st Medical Regiment called and spoke to Wendy regarding accommodation for the "Help 4 Heroes" charity trip he was involved in from Munster Germany to Timbuktu and was looking for a place to stay over night.

Wendy of course said "Yes!" immediately even after being told that the party consisted of 22 all ranks from the regiment who were riding Service Harley Davidson's enduro bikes. In fact she was not phased one bit and offered to accommodate them all as sponsorship and then gave a Weekend break for 2 at Ridersrest to be auctioned the proceeds going to the charity.

When I got home I was a little surprised and was challenged at how we would sleep and seat 22 burly soldiers in a house which had the sleeping capacity of an additional 16 people besides us. Not phased Wendy insisted that we went ahead and that she explained to Greavsie (Cpl in charge of organising accommodation for the Trip) that they might have to be on put me up beds around the house, which incidentally they would have to bring...

Once I had spoken to Greavsie I became more concerned to hear that the party consisted of 12 bikes, 2 Land rovers, 1 Sherpa mini bus and a 7 tonne Pantec lorry.

Of course they would put a link to http://www.ridersrest.net/ on the MunsterEnduroClub's website. Well it is for a good cause and publicity can only be a good thing, right?


We spoke to the neighbours who were excited by the prospect and to Kay & Mark who offered to shelter some of the lads which made the prospect more doable.

By the time the date was firmed up (16th Feb - My Sister Denise's birthday) the group has shrunk to just 17 thankfully. Consisting of 9 riders + 8 in 4 support vehicles, 3 Land rovers and 1 7 Tonne Pantec. A tad more manageable in fact bang on the max we could do comfortably which was a blessing as Kay & Mark were slap bang in the middle of packing up house in the UK to move over here permanently so this let them out of their obligation...

You can read more about them here on Pages 38/39 of this on-line motorcycle mag and a running blog of the trip here MunsterEnduroClub

We were expecting them at around 18:00 - 19:00 given the route and the bikes. so I rode in the direction they were coming from to ride into Riders Rest with them. At 17:00 we received a phone call from the lead group informing us they were still 240 Clicks away from Limoges, which is another 75 Clicks from us, I returned home to the warmth and waited. After what I thought was an appropriate time I drove out to Chamberet to meet and escort them to Ridersrest.

The 1st Group of 4 riders was safe here at approx 21:00 cold and truly emotional and within half an hour we heard from 2 riders who had made it to Treignac Tourist office and wanting directions, It was far easier to go and get them - Wendy sorted the now 6 riders out with a hot curry followed by apple pie washed down with buckets of Tea and a few bottles of beer before they showered and went off to bed.

At 22:00 Dave Sippet called (The QM(T) for the 1st Medical Regiment, a Former Royal Marine whom I had met during my time in the corps) driving the Pantec, saying they were about 180 Clicks away. By 23:59 I had RV'd with him and brought him up to the house. The Pantec by now had 2 of the remaining 3 Bikes and riders onboard. The 3 Land rovers turned with the last bike strapped to one of them as we were parking the Pantec completing the group. Everyone was here.
Wendy again rose to the challenge and fed and watered all 11 of them. Once fed and showered they hit the sack and the house was still by 01:30; Wendy had tidied up and set for an 080:00 breakfast by 02:00 and in bed herself. She was still awake when I joined her after helping Kev the Mechanic unload two bikes from the Pantec and start problem solving on them.
at 04:00.

At 07:00 we were up before everyone Wendy started cooking a full English and porridge and I set about waking them all.

By 10:00 I had escorted them all to the A20 through Seilhac and saw them safely on their way south and on to Spain...

After having spent the last couple of months in the relative boredom of Winter the house looked like it had been hit by hurricane and we felt like it had.

I must add the guy's were good ambassadors for their Regiment and the British Services and whilst the house had been filled to capacity it had not suffered any damage nor had we excepted there to be any, perhaps we were left a little fatigued though...

Verdict: We are glad we did it and although we did not have much time to socialise with any of the guys properly we would not hesitate doing it again.

Some shots of the house

The 1st Year marker

It has been a whole year now that we have been full time emigrants or ex-pats as most Brits seem to call themselves, we think of ourselves as "Globalsapiens" or simply european.

We have achieved a great deal in the 1st year, far more than we actually thought we could, but there are somethings we thought we might have acheived but which is still out of reach.

So what have we achieved then:

Well we have moved here lock-stock-and motorbikes. Registered the car and one of the 3 bikes which was real easy. 2 more bikes to go which are prooving a challenge. We have created a viable business know as RidersRest and recieved, accomodated, fed, and entertained a plethra of different people from all accross the UK, Sweden, Holland and Belgium, all of whom claim to have had a great stay and all pledging to return in the future. Indeed some already have made a return trip.

I do not think the B&B would have been such a great success if it had not been for Wendy's cooking which always seems to hit the spot even for the most fussiest of eaters and vegitarians alike. We have consumed a huge amount of Red wine and Biere Blonde though so I suspect this has also helped a little to relax the guests and us.

The house has lent itself real well to it's new role. The Barn, now a fashionable Bunk Room with it's 3 en-suiet bathrooms has seen much use, and with the exception of one shower tap has held up to the abuse of its occupants and actually still looks brand new, Those who have styed in it have sung its praises and left with stories of returning with friends to ride the area in groups.

The Attic room has become known as the Cannard Room which is French for Duck or Kinard English slang for what happens if you do not duck. Everyone who has slept in this room sported the head rash associated with not ducking but all swear that it is a very comfortable and romantic room. Not bad for a bit of attic space.

The two rooms in the house which we use for B&B are also still looking surprisingly fresh considering the amount of wet bikers brandishing helmets and hard cases, so we are well please at the little maintenance we will be involved in this winter.

Did we make any money - Yes we have made suffucient money to live comfortably since May and that should last until December before we spend the now 25% depleted pension, Depleted due to the exchange rate of course, but we are still doing Far better than we had hoped when we first came over.

What we now need to do is take a holiday and we have planned to get down to Spain with wendy's mum and get some relaxing sun time, and I of course am looking forward to more riding.

So have we made the right decission to move over to france? - You bet we have!

If you have missed the pictures over the last couple of months then you can see what we have been up to on the WhereIs web sites as we have been entertaining an riding mostly. www.whereistonynow.co.uk

We have done very little to the house since April. We will however start working on the house again once the weather changes from the now Sunshine (cold evenings) to rain rain and snow. The projects are to Decorate the front room and bring out all our objedah which is boxed behind the sofa and turn it into a real home. We also need to look at the kitchen units and layout of the diningroom, though it does work as it is we would like something more modern and robust ;) We also have our bedroom and bathroom to sort out. Though these are projects non of them actually (save the front room) need to be done in any hurry, and we may even wait until the exchange rate is in our favour.

Comune Takes Off

Mark finished the petanque court and the challenge took place, Yevett and Nicole took the social event seriousely and prepared a picnic, Sadly Wendy and I were only able to partake in a short game as we had unexpected (though welcome) guests but I think the scene is set for a rematch and our turn to do the picnic (maybe a BBQ).

The height of the week social events for the comune was to set up a table in the local car boot which I think was more of a community social event more than a UK car boot, we bought some beer glasses ;)

Friday I went along to Harley Davidson Limoges to have a new front tyre fitted on the Rocket, Why does it always rain when I have new tyres on my bikes? I would strongly reccommend the dealership and found them exceptionally helpfull to a fault.

I discouvered a couple of Bats hiding in one of our shutters today I am not sure who was more surprised when I came to open them...

What's that smell ?

Well there has been a summer feel in the air and the weather has pretty much backed that feeling up. We have enjoyed a couple of weeks in between 25 and 32 degrees in the shade, needless to say we have taken advantage of this time by getting out on the bikes and enjoying the heat.

We had time to visit some new friends who live over the other side of Uzerche, Vannessa & Chris and closer to Pompadour is Linda & Ian both are keen bikers. I took a ride over to "The Wishing Well" near Uzerche again this is our closest rival Bikers B&B which we can now confirm is closed fro business as it has changed hands and the new owners are not going to continue as a B&B, Lorna & Shaun kindly allowed me to post an advert on their barn door and took some cards incase they were visited by bikers llooking for a nights kip.

Uzerche with Wendy and Linda

Kay and Mark are still over and we enjoyed an evening in Treignac with the locals, Natalie is singing and Ricky (Kays son) brought along Ralph and Ellie who enjoyed some of the sports around the fountain in the square.

Wendy and I rode down.

Mark and I spent an afternoon digging up a sewrage overflow pipe down the side of his barn which was broken and venting into the air (Not nice if left). The more we excavated the more broken pipe was found so in the end we dug the whle section up and rplaced it and even put a rodding pipe in place just incase we needed it int the future.

Finally Mark gets to create his petanque court which is just to the front of his Barn - I watch him of course... Foolishly we have challenged the locals to a tournement...

Green Finger Update From Wendy

Wendy is pleased with her first crop of Tomatoes, Butternut Squash and flowers...