Trip Planning

I never realised how hard planning this little 6 month jaunt would be.  And I'm not talking about finding destinations and organising to land and camp at friendly airfields.  Oh no that was the easy work.

It sounds stupid, but one of my major problems has been finding appropriate travel insurance.  Our bikes are by no stretch of the imagination the most expensive bikes out there, but there seems to be a single item limit of £250 for most insurance policies.  And then if it ever comes to claiming, we'll have to prove that we secured them properly.  Quite how I do that when the bike is no longer there is a completely different issue.  CTC the UK cycle club / advocacy group do cycle touring insurance.  But not for long stay.  Hmmmm.

And then there's the connectivity problem.  Computer manufacturers (yes I mean you ACER) seem to make it very difficult to find a choose the netbook to suit your needs.  We would like 3G connectivity & have discovered that there are a few appropriate machines, as long as we look out for the G in the 12 letter& number product code and don't get confused by the complete absence of a mention of it in the description.  Grrr.

Unfortunately although netbooks are designed for travel, I haven't found an easy & satisfying way of getting internet connectivity when travel.  That said I haven't managed it in the UK either, with our O2 dongle working in Norfolk, some of the time at not much slower than the old 56kb modems...

Power supply I think I've got sorted with the Energiser/Xpal 18000 that can charge & discharge at the same time: this means that I probably won't take any other power cables with me & just rely on this as a less messy approach.

Oh and how could I forget the datatag, they haven't replied to my question us to their presence outside the UK - it's nice that UK police check for datatags on recovered bicycles, but will the Danes???  And the main use of datatagging is really to make your object a less desirable object for the thief to steal - as it proves that the good in question is stolen, which leads to their prosecution if found in their possession.  But if the thief has never heard of the system???

Ah the joys!  Can't wait to finally get in the air.

Back in London again

We're about 2 days work (maybe 3) from putting the plane into the paint shop, but.... the paint shop is only ready for us in 2 weeks time.  So we're back in London, letting my fibreglass allergy rash die down, organising the house and relaxing.  Well ok, it feels like I'm constantly putting on loads of washing, but apart from that!

We picked up the Leatherman we ordered on Amazon from the post office today, it's a really neat little tool.  I got the extra bits kit so that we can take it with us everywhere and have the right hex driver for each job on the bike / plane, as well as screwdrivers etc.  I'm also eyeing off the saw blade for bread cutting.  It has a very nice strong steel blade as well & I'm not sure whether we shouldn't grind off the latch mechanism to avoid the possibility of having it confiscated as a 'weapon'.

Tonight we're going to an Argentinian steak house with friends, in what was meant to be a celebration of getting the plane ready for paint, so it's going to be a bit of a pre-celebration, oh well!

Onwards and upwards....

I can't believe how long it is since I last posted.  We've been up and back from London a couple of times, organising things for a friend + family to stay at our flat, and then going down to London to spend some time with them.

As regards the aeroplane I've mainly been working on the doors.  They may not look like much but there's a lot of trimming to fit the door frames (as done by Julian to my wavery blue line), attachment of door hinges, retrimming, adding in the rain gutters, trimming again, then putting in the door seals.  Funny thing is that a seal isn't the really useful bits of rubber that seal, but a less useful more hard piece of rubber onto which the useful bits are stuck.

Julian's been busy working on the wings - cutting holes (tricky as the distance from the outside of the wing and the embedded fuel tank is 5mm, so you want to go easy with those power tools!), putting tubes through and sticking the upwards curving wing tips on etc.  (I shan't get too technical here as frankly it didn't mean much to me until recently!)

Today was a bit of an easy day in a way, a lot of driving around to pick up parts (and drop a few off) and some aimless meandering as we tried to find the really good local butcher.  When we finally did find it Julian almost drove into the middle of what appeared to be their abbatoir - a smallish piece of concrete with a good scattering of what looks like salt and a few remaining tufts of hair.  We got some fantastic skirt steak for a stir fry. This is a really nice cut, that is highly prized in France for making the official 'steak frites', but can be a bit hard to come by  elsewhere.  I also picked up along with bacon a small piece of black pudding to try out for breakfast tomorrow.

We're finally testing our camping gear: after a lot of research I've gone with the Optimus Terra cookset - two pots that fit neatly into a neoprene bag, plus a frypan on top which is also a lid.  The neat thing with this set is that the bag means that you can bring your rice or pasta to the boil, then keep them hot (and cooking) in the neoprene bag whilst you cook the accompaniment in another pot on the stove.  I went the whole hog and got the kettle to match as well, on the theory that it will be a huge luxury to have a non garlic tasting cup of something with breakfast, and since the kettle fits inside the cook set it won't take up any extra space.

Swimming pool blues

I seem to be going through a tough couple of days here in Norfolk.  I arrived at the fitness centre today minus card (I think I left it behind last time I was there) & once the lady at the desk had looked for it & then found me in their system via my name, she said 'oh, you're not wanting to go to the swimming pool!  They've drained it...'  Just my luck.  I hadn't showered since Friday (waaay too long).  So no idea why.  She assured me there was no crack (for non UK people - there was a swimming pool that collapsed on various users in London a couple of years ago), so I figure someone must have died there.  Also not good.

So we went to our next next most local pool, which was hideously awful.  The water tasted funny.  And was cloudy.  There were two lap lanes with only one marker.  (It turns out that the locals need that little bit more room for their laps so use two lanes as one).  Dodgey lighting.  The very worst of English radio music.  The times I feel the desire to listen to dance music are limited, in the pool is not one of them.  And no private showers.  And surrounded by English people who shower in their bathers.  I think it could have been one of Dante's circles.

BTW did I mention that the swimming pool was in March, but it was the 28th of Feb???