Tyne Valley Green Lanes in a Discovery

For some reason, when I was in the police I used to like to put the marked up Defender into low ratio first gear, then jump out and run around the vehicle as it was lumbering along, then jump back in again. This would impress any passengers who had never been in a land rover before, unless I had the misfortune to slip and fall over, then my desperate attempts to get up and back into the driver's seat were more amusing than thrilling. I think the point of view of the above photo just reminded me of those far off times - I can assure you the Discovery was stationary. If I kneel down these days it's not an easy task to become upright again and I am almost deafened by the clicking from my left knee.

It was a fine day so my friend Neil and I met up to explore some green lanes in the Tyne valley, west of Hexham. I made sure Skye had an extra soft bed in the back just in case it got very bouncy and I could tell from the look in her eye she appreciated it. It was the same look she gives when we give her treats or let her leap in a river. In fact she will dive into any body of water but show her the bath tub and it's a completely different story! She drops to the floor and goes totally limp making it very hard to pick her up. I wonder how she knows to do that?

Green lanes are public byways and your vehicle needs to be road legal to use them. Some of them are very easy, others quite challenging. We drove a few and they were mainly fairly smooth tracks, I never needed low ratio, in fact after climbing one quite steep track we came across a bungalow with great views, and there was a Nissan Micra parked outside. I felt a bit silly driving my rather large wheeled 4X4  Discovery but then I remembered some of the other places I'd been to where the Micra would have no chance and felt a bit better. 

At one spot by some old mine workings, Skye managed to train me to jump on some rocks and balance there. She had to lean on my leg or I would have fallen over, which is exactly what I did when she got bored 10 seconds later. We continued our journey and both Neil and I nearly jumped out of our skins when a C130 Hercules flew right over us at zero feet - I thought it was going to rip the flag off the aerial. It was even lower than the American ones we had seen at Arromanches!

It doesn't look very low in my photo, but I was slow getting the camera out - trust me, it was low!
We continued on, travelling cross country through fields and even somewhere that could have been the African Serengeti except I'm not sure they have Highland Coo's there.

    
 Neil and I managed to persuade Skye not to bark at this proud mother, and she in turn didn't gore us to death for getting too near her baby! They were really beautiful animals and it was all the nicer because we had not been expecting to see them here.
Eventually it was time to head for home happy in the knowledge that Lurch hadn't let us down, and as we drove I appreciated having a vehicle that can go most places off road, yet cruise at 70mph on the motorway.   

Normandy Trip Pt2

Well we made the ferry, Neil's fear of being seasick never happened and he was even able to wolf down a DFDS breakfast, only suffering a mild giddy turn when he saw the price of it. The crossing was smooth and uneventful (come to think of it, any event on a ferry can only be a bad thing!) and before we knew it we were trundling along the A16 which has a surprising amount of long uphill sections, followed by equally long downhills.  This is where we came up with the name Lurch, as the previously described weaving about intensified into a lurching sensation. Nothing dangerous, but lurching reminded us of The Addams Family and their gangly deep voiced butler and so the Discovery was christened. It does look like something that would be driven by a character in a horror film.

We stopped for lunch at a service area called Baie de Somme which was next to a wildfowl refuge. Neil stunned himself by remembering that the French for duck was canard. Thereafter it became his 'go to' word when other French words failed to enter his brain. This happened a lot, but wasn't too helpful.
"Combien pour le canard" whilst pointing at a cheese sandwich can only cause confusion.
The journey passed in a blur of toll paying, dramatic bridges, and seeing various WW2 vehicles and soon we were entering our home for the next four days, Honfleur. By some fluke we navigated the narrow streets and drove through the town and out the other side and eventually came to the last building which turned out to be our hotel! The receptionist gave me a lovely smile as she told me there was only one room booked in my name. I pictured myself sharing a room with 16 stone of snoring thunder and gave her an ugly scowl back. She called in a friend and the two of them spent 30 minutes frantically typing on computer keyboards which magically produced another room, so in the end we were all smiling.

We were smiling even more when we enjoyed a couple of Stellas in the harbour area, Neil said that if I asked him to draw his perfect holiday setting, he would draw Honfleur. It is a fantastic spot and we enjoyed several great meals sitting outside watching the world go by. Even the surly French waiters throwing our plates of food onto the table whilst simultaneously ignoring us only added to the atmosphere.
The next morning after using the battery from Lurch to kick start Neil (not a morning person.....at all!) we set off towards the D Day beaches. Various roads were due to be closed over the next few days and despite filling in application forms for permits and emailing them to different local government offices I got the expected reply - absolutely nothing. There was only one lady's email address printed on the application forms and when I emailed her directly she at least took the trouble to reply, denying any involvement in the matter and wondering why I had troubled her. So we went for plan B, take bicycles and simply ride past the road blocks.
Using my French O-level ( I was suffering from mumps during the oral exam which made me sound so French the examiner was totally fooled) I was able to translate that le Bacon McMuffin avec oeuf  was indeed a bacon muffin with egg so we breakfasted heavily on them. We had planned a traditional breakfast of croissants and hot chocolate but everywhere serving breakfast didn't open until lunchtime. Foolishly I had forgotten that meals in France are served 4 hours later than the UK equivalent.    
We visited a german radar station at Douvres which was very interesting, then went into Courseulles-sur-Mer where we found the place buzzing with activity, WW2 jeeps, motorbikes and trucks everywhere, as were people in period costume. I was videoing some jeeps when the USAF flew really low overhead in a giant C130, my favourite current 4 engine prop.  This is the YouTube link :-
http://youtu.be/LADRNBqrhyc
We had lunch at a café in Ver-sur-Mer surrounded by men who had landed in France in June '44, and watched their faces light up as various people in period uniforms saluted them and said hello. I couldn't help but eavesdrop as some of the old soldiers talked about their memories of being there. There was no show of emotion, just matter of fact talk with the odd funny story.
I introduced Neil to his first croque-monsieur avec frites and he loved it. Sounds so much better than ham and cheese toasty!

   

     

Double Rainbow!

As we left the house around 7pm the sun was shining but even as I unlocked Lurch I felt the first drops on the back of my neck. I glanced at the sky but could see no cloud. How can it rain without a cloud? I checked again, this time for any of our feathered friends who might have decided to bless me with their 'leavings' to coin a polite phrase. Well, it's better than saying 'shit', after all my mother might read this. Nary a bird in the sky. Applying Sherlock Holmes' deduction method i.e. when all other possibilities have been discounted etc, would have been my next step, but suddenly it started to pour down. At least I was saved the mental effort of deducing what was happening - see, every cloud does have a silver lining.
'But I thought there were no clouds' I hear you say.  'Clever dick.' I reply. Quick fire responses never were my forte.

Arriving at one of our local dog walking spots, on the site of a once massive steelworks, the rain was now belting down and bouncing up almost to the level of my wife's knees. I'm a bit taller than Amy, so it only reached my ankles.  We took Skye for a walk and I threw her Frisbee all over the place, trying to tire her out (seemingly impossible) and in the process we all got drenched.

Then with uncannily good timing, just as we neared the end of the walk the rain stopped abruptly.  Almost immediately we saw a complete rainbow form right in front of us, and then Amy shouted that it was a double rainbow! I've very rarely seen both ends of a rainbow touching the ground, never mind a double. Potentially we could have had four pots of gold but I'm not sure I had the energy to fight four leprechauns! When we walked a short distance further, only one side of the rainbow was visible - so we had definitely been in the right place at the right time!

 

It was well worth getting soaked to see the beautiful rainbow in it's entirety, and from now on I will not be put off going out in the rain, just in case another one comes along.


This is Amy taking the panorama above, it's a great photo.

70th Anniversary of D Day in Normandy

I had two choices for my visit to Normandy to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the greatest invasion from the sea in the history of the world.
I could either knit my own jeep from left over wool, or risk travelling over 1500 miles in an untried 21 year old slightly ( make that 'very')  rusty Land Rover Discovery. Imagine my shock when I discovered someone else had actually taken the time to hand knit a WW2 American jeep! Choice made then...... just as well, my knitting is lousy.

     So on Tuesday 3rd June 2014 my friend Neil and I set off from the North East of England. My meticulous preparations had more or less amounted to checking the oil, as most of it seemed to be lying on the road outside my house, and putting some stickers on - my favourite being the Rampant Boar adopted by Monty's XXX Corp as they travelled through France in '44.

      Thus adorned we set off to drive to Dover and on the way hopefully see the Hawkinge Battle of Britain museum, and the B.o.B memorial at Capel le Ferne, which sounds like it's in France but strangely isn't.
As I was reviving Neil, who had fainted in the queue at Costa Coffee upon discovering how much two cappuccinos cost, my eye was drawn to our vehicle currently bathed in sunshine in the car park. I could see fluid dripping from the engine bay and running in a tiny but terrifying stream, forming a puddle. As we walked towards it, I was already preparing to go home and pick up my comfortable, reliable but slightly boring Volvo. Opening the bonnet I could see the fluid was coming from a radiator hose held by a jubilee clip. I asked Neil for help but immediately came to understand the stupidity of my request. He was wearing his best white T-shirt, and thus completely unable to offer assistance.  Reluctantly he did open my toolkit ( a screwdriver, roll of black sticky tape and a tin of WD40- if they can't fix it, it's gone forever) and using said screwdriver I tightened the clip and the leak stopped. What an anti-climax for you, the reader!  However, for me that repair was comparable to anyone else changing a gearbox using a hairpin and a rolled up copy of Landrover Monthly.

     Blasting down the motorway at nearly 60mph we discovered that lifting of the gas pedal on downhill sections induced a stomach churning sideways weaving motion but by loosening your death grip on the steering wheel, she eventually straightened out. So this is how those test pilots battling to break the sound barrier felt!

     Time passed and we managed to visit both BoB places which were great. For some reason at Hawkinge they questioned us closely about media devices and then confiscated our phones, talking darkly about previously uncooperative guests. When asked if I had one, I pointed at Neil and said he did. He in turn pointed at me. We make a great team!

      Am I saluting or is the sun in my eyes?  Bit of both, really. It was impossible not to feel emotional seeing the statue and the long list of names on the wall behind.

And so to our hotel in Dover, looking forward to worrying about whether Lurch would start in the morning, or would we miss the boat!

Lurch?   Tell you next time.

Who am I?

Alright, my Land Rover's not as old as some, and my dog's not as young as others......actually that more or less describes me! I heard today that 60 is the new 30, so that goes someway to explaining why at 58 I feel like 14. I just wish my body would join in!

 

 

 

 

My Discovery started life as quite an upmarket vehicle, complete with such luxuries as air conditioning (only an empty drive belt pulley remains) and remote locking ( 10 clicks of the button to lock,  20 to unlock) and it was a lovely shade of green known as Ardennes. Now it is hand painted matt black in a shade known as .......well......matt black. I used to have a Defender but I think I will save that story for a future blog about taking your dog to a car rally.

 

My, or rather my wife's dog,  is a black German Shepherd with a hint of collie or Belgian Shepherd or Batman, depending on the varied opinions of the many people who like to tell us what sort of dog we have. Actually no one has yet said Batman but when I look in the mirror when driving, particularly when the moon is bright, it's easy to imagine that I am in Gotham City driving an alternative Batmobile.  Well, they are both matt black.   

 

Her name is Skye and she is round about ....let's see...we got her from the RSPCA in Sept 13 and she was about 8 months old. It's July 14 now and if  my maths is correct she is about 19 months old, with a big 'ish' . She had parvo virus as a puppy and the RSPCA took her in and cured her. We were looking for a rescue dog and one day my wife saw her on their web site and I was lucky enough to be the first one to visit her. On the day we collected her there were other people hoping to see her and I was very glad we had acted promptly.  Sometimes I am prone to overthink things and subsequently miss the boat. Not this time though!

 

 

 

 This is my wife Amy. She was practising a well known martial art in the forest when even she was surprised at her own strength! By day she is a researcher at a well known University in a city known as 'The Toon'.  By night she is usually asleep - she is lucky enough to have the ability to fall asleep instantly even in the middle of some noisy event, like a war film or some unknown person snoring.

She has seen many films, but sadly has no idea how most of them end.

 

 

 

And this is me basking in the glory of having climbed Everest, no....... wait, that was another day, this is actually a small pile of rocks somewhere near Rothbury WW1 training trenches. An interesting walk and again a story I will tell another day.

I  retired after 30 years as a  police officer then managed to survive 4 years assisting a paramedic on an emergency ambulance. Trying to pick up a naked dead man (not as nice as it sounds)  on a very steep stairway did something nasty to my shoulder and if you can't carry people, you can't work on an ambulance. So now I find myself with time to start writing again, beginning with this blog.

 

I sometimes adopt the motto  "If at first you don't succeed, pack it in"  but my wife doesn't approve of that so nor do I now!

See you next time......