Wow! I can barely believe it has been nearly 6 months since I last posted on this blog but with the ongoing Covid situation and the new Omicron variant, there seemed little point in getting too excited and actually believing that this trip would happen, but with England lifting all its restrictions and other countries relaxing theirs, things are looking good.
One plus and quite a big one as it turned out, was Eurotunnel extending bookings again. Originally, back in 2020 when Covid struck and I had to cancel the Euro tour, they said as a gesture of goodwill, they would extend my 2019 booking, till the end of 2020. Expecting us to be Covid free, I rebooked for summer 2021. Who knew? Having to cancel the Euro tour for a second time, the booking allowed me to re-date, up to a year after the last booking date, meaning I had to re-book and travel before the 23rd February 2022 or lose my money. To do so, without incurring additional cost (I'd already incurred an increase from 2020 to 2021) I decided to book a day trip booze run, for the 23rd February, using one of the bookings and being prepared to lose the cost of the other. Whilst doing so, I thought I may as well tell them to cancel the other booking. At this point, I was informed that they had extended the period once more, for Jan/Feb bookings till end of March and that I could get 2 credit codes that I must use before 31st March, which could be used for bookings on any dates showing on their booking calendar. Boom! What a result. Forget the day trip. Consequently, I have booked the crossings for this tour, meaning we are travelling not far short of 3 years after I first booked. Prices have gone up again, 25% in those 3 years but at least I didn't lose any money. 😁
Since our last trip, Grizzly has changed his satnav and now has a Garmin something or other. I'm sure it is every bit as good as the Tomtom he had before, the problem though is that they use different 'maps' to calculate their routes. Whilst both are catered for in our MyRouteApp planning software, routes from A - B can look rather different if done on a Garmin compatible map, than those I do on the Tomtom map. Not great, when two of you are supposed to be travelling together and one, mentioning no names, tends to drop behind a fair bit, especially when roads get a bit twisty. Grizzly will say he only has a 750 and the ground clearance is not great on the Shadslow and that's probably fair but can be a bit frustrating at times. Anyway, the upshot of the Tomtom/Garmin discrepancies, is that Grizzly is having to go through the routes and add in waypoints, to ensure his Garmin will allow him to follow me, even if I clear off into the distance. It'll keep him busy for a while, as with a 31 day trip there are 140 separate routes! He's made a start but seems to be having some issues, so I'll take a look and see if I can sort it out.
On the bike front, Ginny has been ridden once since September and only then to move her to Catherine's house, as I sold the flat. Her MOT is due again in 12 days, so I've booked her in for the 16th. I'll then need to think about getting her serviced, as it's been quite a while since her last.
That's all for now I think but expect more as we get nearer to departure.
Ciao
Hopefully all the buggering about with COVID passports to show at Schengen borders and passenger locator reports will be over
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