Devall Travels

 It was our fourth wedding anniversary and we decided to get up very early and drive all the way to Stansted Airport to fly to Dublin. It seemed a good idea at the time. It was quite a cold day but I don't suppose you travel to Dublin in October you don't expect balmy sunny weather. Once in the city centre from the airport we went to see the Book of Kells in Trinity College and then took the bus out to Guinness. You can see loads from the buses and you didn't necessarily need a tour bus. Once we had got back into the centre, we had a late lunch in a pub and then back to get the airport bus.

From the same Truprint folder but a day or two later.  From the Grossglockner, the plan was to do the Pordoi loop in the Dolomites and then finish at a youth hostel just across the border in Switzerland in  Santa Maria Val Müstair, after completing the Stelvio and Umbrail passes. In the end we ended up way short. After the Pordoi loop of passes in sunshine it began to rain. Heavily. Torrential! We stopped at a wellness hotel . Expensive but I couldn't ride any further that day. In fact Claire went in whilst I was sitting at the top of the drive in the pouring rain.  She had a beer whilst they booked us in.  They didn't bat an eyelid that there were two sodden bikers outside.  Looking on booking.com now and this hotel is £290 a night! So it was the next day that we arrived on the Stelvio. Dry and warm when the sun bothered to show up. Claire taking in the brief weak sunshine! Me front and centre.... bratwursts for lunch! ...

And here we are back in August 2006 and the ride up the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse . I came across a batch of photo prints in a Truprint envelope.  So I scanned a few in. If it wasn't for the date stamped by the camera I would not have even thought it was so long ago. Sorting the photos by date was easy enough, but sorting them by time they were taken was harder.  Not a problem had I been using digital technology but what we now get to call an analogue camera meant the date was hard enough. Anyway I have had a stab at it. At least I know the first one and the last one and maybe cluster some together from the middle. The others could have been anywhere along the road. In the morning we had breakfast in the youth hostel we had stayed in the night before in Zell am See, before setting off to the Grossglockner itself. Claire and I were travelling on my 1999 BMW R1150GS. At the northern end toll plaza All on the ride up or indeed down the mountain! At the Bikers Nest - Edelwei...

Well, it's January and the usual time to start to look forward to the summer and holidays. With Covid-19 still the main focus of everyone's thoughts, it may be too soon. But. You need to think of something other than working from home (if you can, and I can) and spending 23 hours a day in the house with an hour for some exercise and to walk the dog.  Luckily we have things like TV and internet to pass some of it!  Even the drudge of walking around the supermarket has been taken away from many of us and we get groceries delivered. So my attention at the moment is on getting away in the summer.  A summer that unlike last year won't be marred by cancellations and lockdowns. A summer that will be warm and sunny, Today's incessant rain and freezing cold banished for a few short weeks in July and August. So steam railways.  We have one that passes right behind our house and we haven't been on it for a long time. So this summer that will be one of the th...

With the country back in a third lockdown and the pessimistic news that we will be still cowering to the Covid-19 pandemic for another six months and some experts saying we may still not be out of the woods by Winter 2021, it looks as though a holiday/vacation this year might not happen. Vaccinations are going to be available.  Claire and I are in the 5th tier group and we are looking at March or April before we get the first jab or the two that are needed. Whether that will enable travel is not being explained very well as yet.  we are told that millions of people carry the bug and aren't otherwise infected or even know they have it.  So maybe vaccination and tests will be the future?

Finally arrived. Less the £75 cancellation fee. If it had been me cancelling because I didn't want to go, all very fair. But it's a ripoff when it was forced and the airline cancelled on me. Travel-Up have seen the last of my money.

Another weekend and another "staycation" drive out. This time to Standen House, another National Trust managed property. This one is special as the finest example of the William Morris' Arts and Crafts movement at the end of the 19th century. The house is as it would have been with the dining room restored to "as is" from from the 1920's. It took a while to get there with the route TomTom decided on. Only 71 miles but it took nearly an hour and a half. Only the ground floor is open as the upstairs isn't wide enough to allow social distancing. As with any property trying to stay open during the pandemic and aftermath, public safety is a top priority. Entry is by pre-booked ticket (booked online) with limited numbers and timed entry. There was a small queue to get into the house itself, controlled by a traffic light system and a one way route around the ground floor. William Morris Arts & Crafts Wallpaper William Morris Arts & Crafts Wallpaper As w...