A bright and sunny morning greeted us as we left the back door of 39 Main Street, Newbold.

New tyres fitted two days before we set off and a quick tune up the day before made a fantastic difference to the performance and handling.

Immediately as we headed south, our way was blocked by roadworks in Enderby, but I educated Hippy in the fine art of nipping through the service roads of Service stations and headed out onto the fantastic network that is Britains motorways. As our latitude decreased, cloud cover increased. This is not how it is meant to be!

Amazingly few road works presented themselves and the only vaguely scary moment came when an Escort skidded off onto the hard shoulder with four locked up wheels having committed road-kill on some beast resembling a diurnal badger. - Should have stayed in bed, sett rather innit.

Getting to Dover, the wind increased, but was reasonably manageable even for that dodgy descent into Dover town that readers may be familiar with.

Cross channel by the smallest single hulled ferry that I have been on (except for the Malali in Guyana and that doesn't really count) Remember that this is a windy, rainy day and you will realise that this was not the most stable crossing. Poor Hippy suffered the condition of many landlubbers and succumbed to the need to visit the head. Minor spillage.

I was of course most concerned. About the bike, that is. It might have fallen over and got a small scratch. At this point, I must say that Helen sits beside me as I write these jottings and so approves every word, kind of. We had a couple of beers on the boat (as is customary) and chatted for the crossing with a fascinating couple from Freiburg. Hardened motorcyclists, both, Nicole is a banker and Tom a 'harp' player in a band. He did not describe their music, but I was picking up an R+B vibe. They told us the website of the band, but as Hippy and I are not the greatest for memory retainers, we can't be to specific.(apart from when it comes to money and then I can't get away with anything!) www.gipsymoth.de or .com or somesuch.

First night abroad was a simple hotel in Oostende. Good value as we reckoned that we could feed ourselves for the day on the breakfast. Chrysso will be disappointed that we have set a budget of around 40 pounds a day through Europe including fuel, food and accom. So no Sheratons for us! A short but wet journey to Bruge has checked our clothing and thankfully, it has not been found wanting. I get the feeling that Northern Europe has plenty more of the same in store for us.

Signing off (because the sun is out for 5 mins) Watty and Hippy