It’s clear to me

I don’t know the reason for this, maybe because having walked into the bar at 8.15pm I said to the barman “Lo normal por favor” (“The usual please”), or was it because, when in the restaurant, I ordered for the first time a second vino tinto? Well whatever the reason, after dinner, the owner brought a small unlabelled bottle of clear liquid to accompany my cafe Americane, and gesticulated for me to top up my coffee with it. Having sniffed it and detected a hint of alcohol content, I duly obliged, coz that’s the kind of guy I am. How much to put in I had no guidance, but I felt it needed a double dose, if not to dilute the strength of the coffee at least! Afterwards as I meandered into the bar, the young barmaid gave me another half glass, which I duly obliged to sip. I left the glass on the bar whilst I walked  back through to the restaurant to ask the waiter “Quesque se, what is it, que”? To which he replied “From the grape, 40%”. I returned to my half glass to find it full, the owner had topped it up! By 10.30pm I resembled some typical old drunk propping up the bar, but like the young barmaid said “It’ll help you sleep”.

Talking about bedrooms brings me to another subject, that of the time lapse film. My bedroom is on the lower ground floor, some may say basement, but it has and air of chic about it, especially after a few glasses of 40%. The time lapse was taken from a bedroom on the second floor, draw your own conclusions……. 🤔 I set it filming at 6am and ran it for three hours. Oh, you want to know what I’m doing in somebody else’s bedroom at 6am? Well no doubt you would, but the boring truth of the matter is that it was an empty room, for the only time I was allowed access. Yes, life can be quite mundane can’t it, and nothing like your mind was envisaging?!

I’d asked for the room specifically for that purpose as it gives a great view of the mountain, but the room was taken for the duration of my stay, however I got a WhatsApp from the owner last night to say somebody had cancelled so he let me use the room for that purpose. Yes I really am like my road sign!

Now for the biking day so look away now if it’s not your thing.

The last time I had so much enjoyment riding a bike was probably when Rachel and I were in Switzerland or Italy during our early twenties, it’s saying something if you can feel like you’re 40 years younger! The bike is really everything and more than I could hope for, smooth and powerful with an understated tone about it, much like me really! 😆 Maybe that’s why it just works, doesn’t make a song and dance about it, in the words of an early Ford car advert ‘Man and machine in perfect harmony’, until I fall off at the next corner! 

It wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea but it is mine, and surely that’s all that really matters. Having said all that, no matter what bike you own you couldn’t help but like it more here. The weather and the roads are a bikers haven, but more than that, consider this…… I rode 50 miles of mountain passes and hairpins with a completely empty road in front of me. Yes, 50 miles! Now before you jump to the conclusion that I had a stream of traffic behind me, caravaners and motorhomers always have a lovely clear road ahead of them, there was nowt in my mirrors either. You may think I was being a bit like one of the racers in The Gumball Rally who said “We don’t need mirrors, it’s not what’s behind that matters, just what’s in front”! But although I was taking it easy today, the only danger of anything appearing in my mirrors was another more eager biker. Can you imagine riding anywhere in England for 50 miles and not being held up at some point? 

I was going to, and maybe at some point, give a more in depth review of Reg the Rocket having now had him for two weeks and over 1,500 miles, but time is cracking on at this end so maybe another day.

Oh ‘Reg’, if you were wondering, then the connection is Rocket Man, but I couldn’t call him Elton, so went for his real name, it seems to fit.