Cycling the Isle of Man TT course

'Experience the thrill of the challenging 37 and three quarter mile mountain course packed full of famous turns.' said the guidebook.
Unfortunately, we didn't have access to a motorbike, so we went for it on our bicycles.
We set off from the little seaside town of Ramsey and then straight up the Hairpin, climbing for six miles up the Mountain Road.
Once at the top there was beautiful views all around us and an incredibly strong tailwind that blew us all the way to Douglas. It was one of my best rides ever as we freewheeled down the smooth tarmaced road reaching speeds of nearly 38 miles per hour.
It felt really fast and dangerous, but was put into perspective when we reached the official start line and saw a big poster that said that the motorbikers reach speeds of up to 200 miles per hour.
We carried on round the route and soon met up with the wind again, this time straight into our faces making the return section really hard work.
We also didn't find any coffee stops so took a couple of breaks in bus shelters to eat our emergency rations of sultanas, chocolate and shortbread. I also discovered that if you shove everything in your mouth at once it makes a delicious gourmet style treat.
We made it back home in three hours.

Valetta Harbour

My travelling companions have very different ideas on what to wear on a pleasure cruise around Valetta Harbour. I am firmly with my mother in law on this one, but I haven't included a shot of me wrapped up in a flowery blanket - although a fellow cruiser is modelling an identical one in the background of pic two.
It was definitely very nippy in the wind, but I then encountered another unexpected problem. We were sat on the left hand side of the boat, but the captain only mentioned the sights on view on the right hand side.
After about 30 frustrating minutes I went over to ask him if he could include anything for us to see. Big mistake!!!
He got very annoyed and said that it was a right handed cruise, so everything was on the right of the boat. He even said that under maritime law he couldn't mention the left hand view, as there was the worry that if he did people would rush across to look and the boat might tip over.
Fortunately we didn't capsize and we enjoyed the beautiful views, although not in sync with the commentary.

Gozo and Comino

Recently Darren's mum celebrated a special birthday, so we have come away with her for a few days. We are staying on the island of Malta in a very nice hotel.
After a couple of days of gale force winds the weather has calmed down and today we went out on a boat trip to the nearby islands of Gozo and Comino.
First stop was the beautiful Blue Lagoon on Comino. We had never heard of this tiny island, and it only has four full time residents. It also has one hotel and an incredibly sheltered lagoon.
I spent my time sitting on the rocks enjoying the view, while Darren and his mum went on a speed boat trip with Crazy Tony and his four dogs.
After all of the excitement we crossed over to Gozo which has a population of 29,996 more than Comino. It is known for its amazing churches and they tower over every other building on the island.
Our final stop was a rock known as the blue window, which is quite really self explanatory.

Southend on Sea

We took a drive to Southend with Darren's mum today to check out its delights. I have never been before and Daz hasn't been for at least 20 years.
It has 'the longest pleasure pier in the world' according to the sign at the entrance, but on a cold, windy and overcast day, it wasn't that enjoyable.
It is well over a mile long with an amusement arcade at the start, a cafe and a lifeboat station at the end and nothing in the middle - see photos.
To be fair, a little train does chug back and forth if you don't fancy the walk.
Once back on dry land we walked along the seafront and then picked a random fish and chip shop from a choice of at least fifty.
It was a nice outing, but Darren got it right when he said that we could leave it another 20 years before we call again.

Ps, Lack of blogs

You may have noticed that I haven't written many blogs over the past few weeks. The reason for this is because an awful incident occurred just over a month ago.
It is not much of an exaggeration to say that since then our lives have been hell, but hopefully it can only get better now.
We are trying to get back to some sort of normality, and although there is still a black cloud over our heads, one day it will disappear.
I am going to restart my blogs from now on - maybe not as frequently as in the past - and please bear with me if it takes a while for my weird sense of humour to resurface.

Wedding anniversary

Our wedding anniversary has whizzed around again, and today it is our 18th, although Daz did think it was 19.
I have been reading the gossip pages on the Internet, and I have noticed that celebrities often put up retro photos of themselves.
It may be because they are not looking their best, so today I am following their lead. I have trawled through some of our early digital photos and here is a random selection from about 12 years ago.
Ps, with the exception of Darren's hair we maybe haven't changed much at all!

Snow and chicken issues

Darren has had to return to England to attend an important meeting, so I dropped him off at Madrid airport a couple of days ago. Before he left he set the sat nav to take me to my next campsite.
If you have been following this blog you might remember that the sat nav and I are sworn enemies, but I thought that in Darren's absence we could come to some sort of truce.
All was going very well and I was only four minutes drive from the campsite, when the sat nav directed me into a country park. To cut a long story short, it was illegal to drive in the park, as three separate Spanish people told me quite forcefully as I frantically tried to get out of it.
Both the sat nav and one of the Spaniards said that the best way out was by driving along a two lane cycle path through a wood, which I shakily did.
I emerged back onto a real road very upset and hating the sat nav even more than usual.
Check in at the campsite went well and I calmed down, then after an uneventful evening I went to bed.
I was woken in the night by a huge clattering on the roof and hailstones hurling themselves at the van. I listened in astonishment and once that had quietened down a thunderstorm started up, with bright lightening flashes and loud crashes quite close by.
Eventually I nodded back off to sleep and the next morning when I opened the blinds I found that I had been snowed in! This sort of thing never happens when Darren is here, so feeling a bit depressed and alone, I headed out through the snow to do a bit of shopping.
In Lidl I spied a display of sad looking Easter chickens that nobody had wanted, so to cheer myself up, and for a bit of company, I bought myself a small flock - see below.
They were excellent if quiet company all last night, but this morning the sun came out I didn't notice that they were getting a bit hot.
I realised just in time that they were melting and that one head had nearly fallen off! 
I had intended them to be free range chickens, but what I had to do was scrape them off the table, push them back into shape and shove them all into the fridge.
They are still there now and they all looked at me accusingly a few minutes ago when I got some milk for a coffee.
I will let them out again tonight once it is dark and hope that they forgive me.
Ps, thank you to Darren's sister for her kind offer to lend me a guinea pig, but I will pass on that for the time being.