We had a sleep in this morning and caught the tube to Vince’s relatives in Hanwell…where we left some of our gear we need to sort out. We then went back to our Guest House and dropped stuff off before catching the train again to Parcel Force in Acton to pay Customs Duty ( on prescription medication sent from Australia) and collect my parcel! They are the most expensive drugs I’ve ever bought….the cost to purchase in Austalia – $73 to post from Australia and (40 pounds) around $100 for VAT and UK Handling! Seems there’s no point in trying to do the right thing ….when I could just get it FREE on the NHS here!
I found a place to put in our washing, get Vince’s Motorcycle pant linings mended (they have ripped along the seams and crutch) and his sox mended ….all for 25 pounds. I have also booked into a hairdressers for tomorrow morning as my hair is crazy!
The afternoon was spend sorting through our mountain of stuff……we badly need to reduce weight and also deal with the stuff we left behind on the shakedown riding in the UK ….we have way too much stuff and we need to donate some to charity and send other stuff home ….Shipping, even by sea, is very expensive!!!!!
The bike has lost a bolt from t)33 windscreen, one of the rubber lugs has broken off the top box, my connection wire for my electric vest really needs to be extended and we need to solve the problem of leaking panniers! So a Trip to BMW at Guildford might be in order…otherwise when we get to Germany!
We did some shopping at Sainsburys for cereal, milk, frozen meals for breakfast and dinner etc…and spent time drying out stuff and going over the medicines in our Adventure Kit…that the boxes have fallen apart from the water…to record what they are for and dosages….the adventure never stops!
… and Vince says … “Saw a fox in the back yard of our B&B here in South Ealing, and it was really cool. Yesterday they mowed the grass here, and this afternoon I’d gone downstairs and out the back to put some of my wet riding gear in the sun to help it dry out, and the fox was in the yard – a beautiful reddish-brown colour with a white tip on its tail. I called out to Karen upstairs through the open window and she caught a glimpse of it as it slipped through a gap in the wooden fence. Our B&B host came outside and pointed out a hole in the yard that leads to the fox’s den, and said that the fox raises its babies there. Later in the afternoon I saw the fox back in the yard, head down inside its burrow – maybe it was checking on its offspring…..
