Tuesday 2 July 2013

Sons and Daughters, Brothers and Sisters...

Boys

Sons are just the best, they like to play with cool toys, they are full of laughter and they surprise you every day with just how much they grow into a damn cool guy. Alex is doing this, he is great fun to hang out with and it is amazing that it was not that long ago that he was a boy. Well now he is a man and as such he drinks, farts and fiddles with motorbikes. We could not be more proud. So when my Brother Pauly came to visit, we had to go out to play in Pauly's truck.

You can just see Alex sat about a third up the way the cliff face
So we headed out into the hills of Somerset and tried our hand at a bit of local offroading, which we loved. Pauly is an expert driver and approaches any challenge with his usual gentle humour and then climbs his truck up the sort of rocky slopes we loved to ride our bikes down so many years ago. While out and about we checked out some of the old places we visited as kids, including the caves we explored while on a school trip in 1990!

The entrance to Sidcut Swallat cave, Mendip.

Going underground!
Nothing like a bit of solo climbing forty feet up a cliff with no rope!
More solo climbing at height
So after a whole day of adventuring we wandered home and Alex declared that he was in love with Pauly's truck and we both had a new hobby. Let's OFF ROAD! A massive huge thank you to my dearest brother Pauly and my lovely step son Alex, who made a day out a pure pleasure.


Girls

Girls are just great, they are pretty, they smell nice and they like cuddles. Can you tell that I always wanted to be a mummy? So when Alex announced that his lovely girlfriend Beth was moving in with us, I was overjoyed. You see, Beth is lovely, she has filled our home with laughter and seeing Alex this happy is just wonderful. You have never seen such a beautiful couple who compliment each other so well. 

The thinker goes Gothic!
Well, once Beth was moved in and had settled into the comfortable life of enduring Jayne's almost continuous farting and Carol's horrendous snoring, she let us know that she would like to travel north to visit her Mum and introduce her to Alex. Well, any excuse for a ride out...

So we decided to take the motorbikes and ride the ninety three miles to Beths Mum's house. Only Carol's bike had packed up, with leaking fork seals, blowing exhausts and a failing cooling system. Noreen needed a lot of work to make sure that she could make the journey. 

No forks or cooling system
So over two weekends Carol tore Noreen to bits and put her back together again. 

Going back together

It took some time, a lot of work and a few cups of tea. Once sorted, it was a quick test and then we discovered that the cooling fan had melted. Thankfully a dear friend of Curious Adventures, Wayne of the bashed up ZXR sports bikes stepped in and offered us a new fan. With Carol off the road, another friend of Curious Adventures, Rich stepped in and rode over to Wayne's to pick up the fan. Both of these men are utter gentlemen and with out them, we would have been stumped. So huge thanks to them both. 

So with the bikes sorted, we hit the road and headed North...



Beth and Mummy


Jayne meets long time hero, Vlad the Impaler...

Then as we left Tintern on the way home, Carol discovered that during all of her work, she had not adjusted her head light correctly. Oops, but it was a simple fix... until her bike over heated once again and spewed coolant all over the road. So we stopped for a short break and took in the fabulous view that we could see in the dark, in the woods on the edge of Newport.

Finally, with Noreen fixed once again, we hit the road, quite literally in the case of Beth when Sylvie dropped down an unmarked bump in the road and hurt her ribs. Cue another pain relief stop in Oarst services. Damn that place is shit. 

Three numb arses and one case of sore ribs later...
Finally at just after midnight, we rolled up the hill and home. I dropped Sylvie back in the garage and as we were locking up the bikes Alex came back and told us that we were locked out. The front door was locked from the inside. Fortunately it turned out that he was just so tired, he forgot that the door has two locks! Bed that night was welcoming for us all and after two hundred miles of riding Jayne's shoulders were completely ruined, her hands no longer worked and just keeping her eyes open as she took off her leathers was a challenge! 

This was Beth and Alex's first Curious Adventure together, just as it was Pauly and Alex's first Curious Adventure too. A month of firsts and a month spent with some of the most beautiful people I could ever ask to be with. After many years of wanting, I have the family I always wanted and I could not be happier.

A huge thank you list this month and in no particular order

Alex - for being so much fun and the perfect son
Beth - For being so lovely and the perfect daughter
Pauly - For being the brother every sister wishes for
Rich - For going beyond the call of duty and being a true friend
Wayne - for being a fountain of knowledge and so kind

Finally, I want to thank my beautiful Carol, the woman who has given me so much over the years, so much love and happiness, the family I always wanted and the partner who makes Curious Adventures so much fun. Thank you my family, I love you all.