135 Final Prep for the Americas and a trip to Scotland.

Our stay with Bob and Liz has been very enjoyable and we are extremely grateful for their company and hospitality but that is soon to come to an end with our departure for foreign lands. They have now departed for a 2 week diving holiday in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt.

Just at the back of Bob & Lizs place is a forest with this lot roaming free.

Karen got her hand in helping Liz with the lambing.

And the duck (bright yellow beak) was such a pest that Liz bought it two mates to stop it becoming a dog.

We had a 10 day visit to Scotland to see Karens relatives and indulge in Enids (Karen's aunt) 80th birthday party. Tim, now known affectionately as "Fluffy Fingers" for his superb culinary skills,  had made her a very nice birthday cake.

Enids 80th Birthday cake, courtesy of Fluffy Fingers, Tim

Happy Birthday Enid.

The party, John, Phillipa, Calum, Tim, Enid, Ray, Karen, Margo, Sandy, Amy, Susan and Gordon.

And the ladies together. Susan, Phillipa, Enid, Margo, Amy and Karen.

We had a very relaxing time staying with Margot and Sandy (well Karen did, I was my usually flapping self, stressing over the America trip admin) but in all fairness we were made very welcome and despite the cold weather we thoroughly enjoyed the visit. Then it was all off again and back to Bob & Lizs for the final preparations.

Bob & Liz will be back in the early hours of Monday morning and I will collect them from Stansted Airport. I will then have a few hours sleep and it's off to Heathrow with Wallace for his flight. Ten its back to move the caravan to its storage place at Billys so that will be a manic day for us.

In the mean time, we are finally getting our act together but with only 3 days till the bike ships we are still struggling with some things. The rear shock absorber has not arrived yet and If it does not get here by tomorrow morning we will have to go without it.

We have finally sorted out our camping gear and are now looking at ways to strap it all on the bike. There's a lot !!!

We are going to be very busy over the next few days. We need to wax-wash Gromit the Landrover and the caravan. They will be stored for nearly a year and need some sort of protection from the weather. The trouble is that it is freezing cold and the last thing we want to do is mess around with cold water.

Our wheel-less caravan. To stop the pikeys from nicking it whilst we were in Scotland. We have had a few obvious "Recces" where they came around looking to sell (stolen ?) tools and the caravan was blatantly eyed up.

 The admin we have had to do for this trip has been a pain in the butt, however it is finally done (well almost) and hopefully today will finalise a lot of these loose ends and crap jobs.