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It’s taken a few years, but I finally managed to get enough money together to take a ride… not another major 6 monther, just a 10 day trip, but an adventure isn’t dictated by time, nor destination, but by what you experience along the way.

Ireland proved to be an adventure, if a somewhat damp one. There was an Horizon’s Unlimited meet up in Enniskillen that I wanted to be at, but there was also a Photo Rally that took in points around Eire and N.I. The combination of the two was compelling.

Here are a few snaps from that trip and a mini 2 minute video that gives an idea of what finding the photo locations was like.

One stage of the Ireland Photo Rally 2012

Not much to inform anyone about. Still in limbo really, looking to make life altering changes asap, but it’s not looking promising.
Ex is still pretending there was never a marriage and that her “life/age issues” aren’t the reason she ended the marriage, but as long as she can live with lying to herself she should be happy.

Oh well, no alternative but to keep going and hoping.

And so it perpetuates itself. The lies will get progressively bigger and bigger no-doubt, as justification is sought and people are sought to be on one side.

If only a truth was told and an admission to oneself that the consequences of the actions were purely selfish, then matters could move on.

It’s so very disappointing and so far from what I’d hoped the shared future would be and nowhere near what all my efforts were working towards.

I’ve created a page on Facebook for Unchainedworld, which, if you’ve forgotten is a site where you can recommend unique venues and services. It is only for recommendations and isn’t a critiquing site… and there are no degrees of unique.

So if you find someone or somewhere that has delivered outstanding service or provides something beyond the standardised fayre offered by chains, then please share with Unchainedworld.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Unchainedworld/153588048037134

Took tea yesterday with a fellow GS rider (a rare 850 GS). Roanne runs a small restoration business and is a UK GSer, so our paths crossed.

Chai Tea and spiced ginger biscuits.

Next season perhaps a ride out.

Charming company, very relaxed atmosphere, which made such a pleasant change from the recent testosterone filled alpha male bollox encounters with fellow riders.
A fellow bimbler happy to stop and look, rather than race passed to show how loud the exhausts can sound in a small village.

I look forward to finding things.
Not a romance, but possibly a good friend and they are so few and far between these days, or they live on a different continent.

Well, with the advent of a compulsory no holiday clause kicking in any day now at work, plus the additional compulsory overtime day (although we don’t get overtime pay) and the rest of my time being taken up by Uni studies, it would appear that this year’s motorcycling has now ended.

In summary, what an absolutely useless riding year it has been. Lack of funds, lack of time have limited any rides to at most a few hundred miles and only one has included a stop over.

There was a ride to a Horizons Unlimited meeting where I gave a talk to a crowd of almost several, summed up by a bloke who said, “I see Tiffany Coates is giving a talk and some bloke called Steve Baker is too, but I’ve never heard of him, does anyone know who he is?” he asked me. Well, that displays all the senses of adventure I want in an audience, so I told him to go and watch Tiffany.

Still, not much of an adventure from my point of view either, it was only down the road a few miles.

I joined a Welsh group ride out too… that was very unsatisfactory for a lot of reasons, so I’ll be giving them a miss in future.
All the other rides, of which there were maybe 10 at most, were little visits to a point of interest, or a meander aimlessly for a few hours. The cost of the bike, especially with such high fuel and such a low income, makes me wonder if I’ll keep it on the road at all next year and that Karen might not have just put the final nail in my riding with her disingenuous divorce attorney having ridden roughshod over my guy, who had no time to work at all.

Certainly any sense of there being a future adventure such as the Three Teas seems to be an extremely remote possibility and that my adventures are now done and dusted, and not only for this year.

well when I set out on this trip I expected to pass a number of milestone, but I never expected or indeed wanted to reach this one.

The State of Washington today officially ended my marriage to Karen. Now the Karen of today certainly isn’t the Karen I married, far from it, but if she feels being what she is now makes her a better person, well that’s for her and her conscience to deal with.

Suffice to say, it seems the US legal system offers a better deal to folk who are:
1. still in the USA
2. financially able to buy law
3. prepared to lie to gain advantage and have no scruples about this

Sad day, but when I was told justice and law aren’t the same thing, I expected and got the worst.

Well, let’s hope karma brings about the real justice if the courts can’t, but just once wouldn’t it be nice to see ‘the system’ actually work for the folk telling the truth, rather than the folk with the means?

Will it change my life?

Well I doubt it. I still wont enter into a relationship of any description, not that the chance has arisen, not that I’m looking for that chance either. I guess divorced would be easier to explain than what Karen actually did and the limbo and unhappiness that created, but then again, I don’t foresee anyone I’ll need to explain it to and I feel an obligation not to share my unhappiness with anyone in person, this blog being my outlet, so live an isolated life for now and the future.

Setting out on this trip was a means to securing a future, not the future I now see inevitably before me however.

I suppose if you are going to spend your life creating unhappiness for others, then as long as you keep moving ahead fast enough, without looking back at the misery you’ve caused, you could convince yourself that everything was always turning out for the best.
Must be tiring though and then there’s got to be that nagging doubt that one day, just one day it will all catch up with you. You’ll be the oldest person clubbing, you’ll show the signs of the drink, the number of people who you dumped along the way will exceed the number of people you can still call friends, people will start dumping you…
Cosmetics can only cover the cracks.

Bitter? No. Disappointed? Undoubtedly. Unhappy? Certainly.
I’m not enjoying being who I’ve become as a result of this trip and what happened along the way, but I am wiser. I do look back, with a clear conscience, but I no longer look forward.

Enjoyed that.

http://www.welshbikers.co.uk/forum/welshbikers-ride-out-reports/weekend-ride-around-the-world/

Here’s the trailer for a talk I’ll be giving next weekend at Horizons Unlimited. Entitled “The wrong Amazon” it tells how instead of reaching the Amazon and enjoying riding around, because of Karen, I ended up working for Amazon and packing boxes full of books written by people who did complete their adventures without getting stabbed in the back by someone they trusted totally and had committed their life and love to. Should make for something different from the usual slide shows. Follow this link to the video
too epic for one cup, no saucer large enough

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http://ttt.unchainedworld.com