We normally go to the NEC Motorbike Show, known this year as Motorcycle Live, with a shopping list. At the least we always seem to need clothing, new helmets, perhaps boots and gloves. Sometimes we’re researching a new bike for one or other of us. But this time we had nothing at all on the list, and so simply sauntered round the halls looking at whatever caught our fancy. It could be classics like these
or simply a pair of shoes. These caught Jean’s eye
Posted in Motorcycling
Tagged motorbikes, motorcyclelive, motorcycling, NEC bike show
A couple of weeks ago, we took a few days off to explore beautiful Dorset. We stayed near Cerne Abbas, home of the giant.
I was enormously impressed by Katharine Birbalsingh’s speech at the Conservative Party Conference. It pointed up the failings of modern education in Britain clearly and concisely. She deserved her standing ovation.
What she didn’t deserve is what happened next. The school that she works for – a Church of England school, no less – took the stance that the Burmese government might adopt, and sent her to “work from home” whilst her “case is reviewed”.
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The sequence of events goes like this. We grow some tomatillos (see blog post below). We need recipes for tomatillos. We buy “The Essential Cuisines of Mexico” by Diana Kennedy, who is the queen of Mexican cooking. This starts us off on an exploration of Mexican food, and provides inspiration as to what to do with the inevitable surpluses of produce that any allotments create at this time of year.
Diana Kennedy describes Huevos en Rabo de Mestiza (Eggs poached in a chilli-tomato broth) as a “delicious brunch dish”. And she’s right. This is now a Sunday brunch special!
We had a call on Sunday that the apiary had been vandalised. Sure enough, the screen fence has been smashed down and two beehives pushed over. One of the other beekeepers discovered it, and reinstated the hives, at some cost in stings.
I guess that we’ll repair the fence in due course. It’s probably better not to do so immediately, lest the vandals find the site a source of even greater entertainment – “they kinda build it up, like, man, innit, and we break it down, know what I mean? Tacticaaal!”.
I’m pondering whether to report it to the police. On the one hand, if I do, they’ll mock me, which will do nothing for my blood pressure. On the other hand, if I don’t, and one of these exemplars of modern education gets stung to death, I’ll probably be thrown in the slammer on a murder charge.
I don’t know quite why, but earlier this year I ordered some tomatillo seeds. All I knew about them was that they were used in Mexican cooking, but could be grown here in the UK, and were highly productive plants – a bit like sprawling tomato plants.
Well, that last bit was certainly right! Here are some of them. There are gherkins in the foreground, a line of tomatillos behind them, and sweetcorn behind the tomatillos:
First, a caveat. This blog entry isn’t written with fellow beekeepers in mind – so if any beekeepers are reading this, please forgive the lack of jargon and, well, simplicity of the explanation!
It’s an old saw that people start keeping bees for the honey, and get out of it for the same reason. We didn’t even start for the sake of the honey. Rather we wanted to keep bees to improve the pollination of the fruit and veg on our allotment, and it grew from there. But at the point of just finishing the honey bottling, we’re somewhat in sympathy with the second part of the saying. It’s a lot of work, and unbelievably sticky work at that. Perhaps it would be better if we actually liked honey, but we don’t really use it ourselves. Still, there’s a satisfaction to be gained in producing a good “artisanale” product.
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Since the availability of GPS, there’s been a debate amongst motorcyclists about the merits of electronic as against paper maps. We’ve come down on the side of paper for most purposes when touring. We buy a decent scale local area map, and refold it to fit in the plastic window on top of the tankbag. So it’s always there to give inspiration about possible scenic detours, or to suggest where the next fuel stop might be found.
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We finished the holiday by car, going to see our friends Kathleen & Tom in La Crosse. It was strange to be on four wheels instead of two. Pros: Keeping dry and cool. Cons: No longer enjoying the countryside as much.
Here we’re passing one of the many windfarms in the USA. I’m astonished that most Europeans seem to think that Americans don’t go in for renewable energy. This one in Wisconsin has only 20 towers – quite small compared with those we’ve seen in Nebraska, but very substantial by UK standards.
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The final stage, albeit quite an exciting one in its way. After some debate, we decided to take the direct route, which is the I-90 Skyway and Expressway. We certainly got a good view of the Chicago cityscape, albeit shrouded in humidity and light smog. In total it was about 90 miles of urban motorway – pretty hot work on the bikes.
So, what else but … a Frappuccino!
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