Sir Barnes Wallis

Taking advantage of the change in the weather, I decided to get out and put some miles on Ginny, only about 100 round trip, but enough to blow the cobwebs away.

My destination, a place on my list, not unlike a bucket list, of places I'd like to visit, Effingham in Surrey. There in  St Lawrence's Churchyard, lies the famous engineer and inventor, Sir Barnes Wallace. 

Most famous for his brilliantly inventive and hugely successful, if also very costly in terms of lives lost, bouncing bomb, used on the Mohne and Eder dams, he was also responsible for the design of the Wellington bomber.

Having paid my respects and taken my photos, it was nice to spend a while in this peaceful little churchyard, contemplating the contribution this great man had to the war effort. Whilst the pilots, soldiers and sailors quite rightly take the limelight, it's all too easy to forget the part the 'back room boys' played in operations too. Would Gibson have been a hero, without Wallis?

It's clear Sir Barnes is well thought of in the area, as a newish looking housing development's close is named after him.

Am hoping to get to some other memorials in the coming months, so watch this space.

Raring to go, if only..

 .. the bloody weather would perk up a bit!

Last post, I was talking of Ginny's MOT. I re-taxed her from March 1st, then rode her to Sittingbourne to Ryder Motorcycles, a family run dealership. I'd not heard of them before. I saw some guy on the BMW Facebook page say he'd taken his K16 there for its MOT, so I thought I'd give them a go, rather than go all the way over to Tunbridge Wells to the BMW dealership.

As expected, Ginny passed the test. The tester made some comment about how big she was (rude!) and how difficult she was to manoeuvre about the workshop. Not much I can do about that. When I came out, it was raining slightly but that didn't stop me taking a ride round, looking at some houses I'd picked out on Rightmove, really just to get an idea of the area. Nothing can happen until I sell the flat and it's been dead as far as that is concerned but it's useful to see what areas are like. That was the last time I rode, so about 6 weeks ago now. There's been a couple of nice days but I've not been free to ride and now it's gone chilly again. Fair weather biker! Soon I hope to get out and about though.

In the meantime, my brother and I have been planning a little trip across to the continent, for August. I have 2 Eurotunnel tickets that will need to be used up, those from the cancelled Wild Hogs European tour, so I asked Paul if he wanted to use one. He said yes, so we have planned a 4 day trip to visit the dams made famous on Operation Chastise and the attack by 617 squadron, The Dambusters. The plan is to visit all 3 dams, a couple of cemeteries and 6 crash sites/memorials. This, of course, all depends on what covid restrictions are in place at the time, so we have our fingers crossed. Hotels are booked, so I just need to amend the dates on the Eurotunnel. There'll be more on that tour in this blog, as and when we get going. Anything else in the meantime will appear here, as it happens.

That's all for now folks.

Gibson Street, Steenbergen, Holland