Amat victoria curam!

William Walker: the diver that saved Winchester Cathedral

Jane Austen

Soldiers everywhere

A very nice ride through the Cotwolds brought us to Salisbury and finally in Winchester. Home of the famous Winchester Cathedral with among others the grave of no other then Jane Austen. The Cathedral was saved from ruin by a diver who helped to restore the foundations in the 1960's.

Waddesdon Manor

The MG club outside Claydon House

Stowe House

Eddie on your typical English road

Nice Mill in the Cotswold

The weather is more sunny today - which is nice while driving, but less when walking around. Anyway there are lots of things to see. Houses for sure, but also sweet landscapes and tranquil villages with thatched roofed houses. We ended up in Cheltenham.

In an (Haviland Dove) business jet - rather comfy (on the ground that is...)

Here is your (trident) captain speaking

The Haviland Company was a famous airplane manufacturer. In WWII the created the Mosquito - a wooden frame aircraft which was very agile and a huge success. After that the made the first jet propelled fighter planes and commercial air crafts. Unfortunately the latter were to so good and crashed a lot (The Comet) so Haviland almost went broke. The Trident was a humble sucess before Boeing and Douglas took over the business.

This house is much older, but has a nice interior.

Our route will take us along many houses and we start of with Wimpole Hall. Like almost any other house in the UK it ruined the founders and is now part of a trust. Luckily the weather is dry, but not sunny because visiting these houses in your motor suit is otherwise far to warm. The roads in the neighborhood are well maintained and have lots of curves.

Colchester is a pretty small town with an ancient Dutch Quarter (Dutch traders were living here long ago). It also has a very old Castle based on a Roman Temple. (and many many giraffes for promotion of the Zoo).

We are on our way for a little motorbike tour circle around London. We started our trip with the excellent ferry crossing from Hoek van Holland to Harwich - which takes you right in the heart of England in a very convenient manner.

Happy birthday Mr. Mandela!

Had a free moment in sunny Munich today - so I visited the always fun and interesting BMW museum and Welt. Saw the BMWi3 concept car - which really looks very appealing.

Dr. Huxtable wore more then 131 different sweaters over the years - this one was chosen by his fans as the best. I totally agree.

Finally got my hands on a copy of Bioshock Infinity. Looks very sweet - Cannot wait to play - but it has to wait till after our motorbike trip to England.

Next week we will visit Canterbury and I can finally see where the Tales originated from and to see the destination of the travelers, the statue of Saint Thomas Becket. Cannot remember a lot from the stories though - maybe a good thing to reread a few before.

Today Marijn and I had all kinds of meetings around Amsterdam - so we took our bikes and had a "Tour D'Amsterdam". My antique original Gary Fisher Bike is still rolling strong...

Wow - this is probably one of the most boring movies I have seen in a long time. The story is unbelievable, the script ridiculous ("I need answers!") and the editing or slow motion (yawn) or do fast that you cannot see anything... I came out of the theater rather numb - like a...uhh... zombie.

Still working and learning on my Arduino projects - but I must admit that I am lured away by the new Lego Creator kit: The Sydney Opera House. 2989 pieces, 63cm wide... hmmm. Not sure where to put the final result. Anyway - have to wait till September to order it.

After a fun couple of days riding here in sunny Eifel - along the Mosel, through ancient wooods and quiet towns, it is time to return home - which is fun as well :-)

Here in The Eifel on every corner of your trip you will find tiny villages who will transport you right back in time - centuries. You can imagine the original inhabitants wandering around as time stood still.

Luckily there are plenty of sweet places for a stop...

The food in our Hotel is actually pretty good - combined with the view, the sun and the company you wondered what else do you need.

We rode to Ahrtal (Germany) to have a couple of short motor trips in the neighborhood. Our hotel is perched on a wine hill overlooking Bad Ahrweiler and the view from our room - and the restaurant is really mesmerizing...

We couldn't resist any longer - after years of futile excuses not to watch Breaking Bad, we just capitulated and went on a bing viewing weekend of Breaking Bad. Until now? Great!

This whole Ibiza theme gives me lots of inspiration - so I created a new track and already have some new ideas for even more :-)

The famous Met’s admission button will be replaced by stickers - it was to expensive to keep them apparently. A pity because it was part of the experience and part of the art actually.

Sometimes it just nice to have a break from the quantifying group and just walk/run/sleep without any devices - well for a couple of minutes that is - I am afraid to lose vital data otherwise :-)

Mina första svenska låt är remixen från Brott och Straff. Vad täcker ni?

Also "Men of steel: seem to shiver in the cold...

The new Supermen is rather disappointing: weak story (we spend hours on Krypton, then talking and then ruining Manhattan). Like a lot of current movies is is about 33% to long (2 1/2 hours). Henry Cavill is sweet looking - especially without shirt and with a beard - but I am not sure if he can replace Christopher Reeve. But then again: can anyone?

Now that Google reader is retiring -for reasons still unknown to me- I had to go for an alternative in order to keep on reading/browsing trough hundreds of articles a day. I considered and tried some alternatives, but Feedly clearly is the winner. So from now on I Feedly will quench my thirst for everything that is new(s)

Since I got connected with IFTTT (if this then that) life got yet an other level so much easier. There are hundreds of interesting recipes to use and the boring times of copying stuff from one place to the other or checking things manually are over.

On the left Preston (Max) and the right Porter (Charlie) or is it the other way around?...

Wouldn't it be great to have a spin off show with the Scavo brothers? I am not a fan of teen wolf - so that doesn't count...

Thanks to the great people of Conrad, today my Arduino Starters Kit arrived. So I can start to develop all kinds of awesome electronics projects. First I have to start with the very basic stuff though - to get the hang of it. In a couple of months I hope to create something like the Robotshop Rover...

In the British Museum, there are always a few favorites which are a fixed item on our route. The Rosetta Stone for sure, some mummies (always great), the original Portland Vase and the Wedgewood copies. We never saw the Warren Cup though and we had some trouble locating it in the vast exposition rooms - now knowing that is ts actually a tiny cup and NEXT to the (roman) Portland vase...

Houses of parliament

Haendel House Museum

The tour in the houses of Parliament is something not to be missed: great to walk around in such familiar spaces and to hear the stories. All the different traditions are great as well. (How the parties in the houses sit opposite each other, red lines they can not cross, green bags for petitions etc.)
Also when walking around in London you cannot notice memorial plaques attached on houses to mark what kind of famous people lived there once upon a time. Charles Dickens, George Orwell, Nancy Mitford and Haendel to name a few.

About Author

Twitter Updates

Follow Me

Popular Posts

Latest Post

Total Pageviews

Blog Archive

My previous blogs