Time for another update

Following on from last time. I renewed Ginny's insurance with a different insurer from last year. The cover had changed with who I was with, so I searched around for the same cover I used to have, with another insurer and found it at a better price than my renewal, through Bewiser. The added euro breakdown cover with RAC, is a big plus in my book, given the cost of the AA or RAC direct. 

The Ring of Ireland tour came and went, with just over 2150 miles added to Ginny's clock. She was booked in for service soon after I got back and once again Mark Holden Motorcycles in Bromley did the honours. Ginny has now done almost 48,000 miles. With the heatwave weather we've been having, I have been riding her to Spitfire Club most 'working' days. That amounts to about 60 miles per week.

I had expected to have to replace the tyres after Ireland but they still look pretty good, even if a little squared off. I asked Mark what he thought at the service. He said he thought there was maybe another couple of thousand miles in them, I wasn't sure how many they had done already. He was shocked when I looked back to when I bought them and Ginny's mileage at the time, and told him they had done 11,500!  I'm not sure I'll be getting them changed this year, probably in March at MOT time.

Just over a week ago I was sitting in a stand at Silverstone, for the MotoGP weekend. The round trip was 386 miles exactly. It is likely to be the last big mileage I do this year. I've got nothing else planned at the moment. As the rest of August is pretty booked up with other things, I'll have to see what September/October may bring, maybe the Southampton trip I talked about in the last post, but Catherine is looking to go away somewhere and she definitely needs a holiday. Given all this heat and the wildfires everywhere, the Norwegian fjords cruise is looking a good idea. 

Silverstone was good. I rode up on the day before practice, Thursday and stayed with my friend Helen, stopping off on the way at the Imperial Museum at Duxford. Friday I went to the circuit, watching some of the practice sessions but also having a look around the Silverstone museum. It's mainly cars related but I was surprised to find part of the exhibition showing how the circuit was born out of an RAF training airfield, a home to Wellington bombers.

Home for 3 nights was a hotel, called The World's End, just outside Northampton. Staying with me was Phil. Helen came over in the evening and we all had dinner together.

Saturday and Sunday were full days at the circuit, practice, qualifying, MotoGP sprint race and a Harley Davidson Bagger race on Saturday, with a full race schedule on Sunday. Phil hadn't realised I had booked the hotel for 3 nights, so he went home after racing on Sunday, whilst I had a cheaper dinner courtesy of McDs before spending the last night at the hotel on my own. I rode home Monday and pretty much started packing again for a weekend in Cardiff for the FA Community Shield match, Arsenal v Man City. Visiting Cardiff for the game were the same 3 amigos again, me, Helen and Phil. Catherine wasn't at the game but has family in Penarth, just across the bay from Cardiff, so visited them.

Things have cooled down a bit now but we're still awaiting any rain. Hot (not too hot), dry weather is great for 2 wheels but the extreme temperatures are not great for anything. Who could have imagined in January and February that we'd be praying for rain at the height of our summer? Bizarre!

That's all for now.

 

Ginny's check up

March is the most important month of the year for Ginny. It's the month she was 'born' and she'll be eight in four days time. Being birthday month, it also means it's MOT and insurance time. Yesterday was the MOT. I never have any worries about her passing, she's well looked after, being regularly serviced and despite her advancing years, and with 44,700 miles on her clock, she still fires up first prod of the button after 3 months in hibernation. She passed her test with flying colours and now sits patiently, waiting for me to put some more miles under her wheels.

This year the plan is not to go abroad, if you don't count Ireland as abroad, so there won't be as many miles clocked up this year, as in previous years, unless I start ticking things off my list of UK places to visit. I shall be spending a few days away with Phil in August, where we're doing the British MotoGP round. We had talked about it and now it's all booked up.

An embryo of a plan, is to take in some the the sites on my places to visit list, that are clustered around Southampton, one of them being the Solent Sky Museum, formerly the Supermarine Museum I believe. I've asked my friend Helen if she fancies a day out, which will give her an excuse to get her NC750 out of the garage. I can pick her up on the way down, as she lives in Guildford. There's no date for that yet but she's on board with the idea.

I've not sorted out Ginny's insurance yet, I have a few days before it auto renews, so will need to get cracking on that. It's not easy finding like for like and also very time consuming. The renewal's not a bad price but still, it's always worth checking out other avenues.

That's all for now. Spring has sprung, roll on summer.