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What a difference a few days make....
Jennie has been in the UK to see her sister. For obvious reasons, things turned to custard pretty rapidly and an announcement by NZ's Foreign Affairs government department for Kiwis to get back to NZ...
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First official day of lockdown
We've actually been in lockdown at home since I collected Jennie at the airport on Monday but this is the first official day nationwide and boy, it's quiet! So far, everything is working out really...
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The anatomy of a personal lockdown
The whole world has faced the unknown with respect to Covid-19 and whilst the approach of each country varies, we've all faced restrictions which we've not experienced before. NZ went into a hard...
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Time for a bit of nostalgia
This post has been kicked into gear by a bit of household tidying. Although NZ has eased to lockdown level 3, we're still not straying far from home being over 70. A trip to the village supermarket...
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Out of lockdown!
NZ has moved to level 2 and although there are still many restrictions, going for a ride isn't one of them any more! The 11000 km service for my Duke 790 was originally scheduled for 2 days after...
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New tyres - again!
I bought the KTM in March last year, a replacement for the Suzuki GSX-S 1000 which I'd owned for the previous 3 years. Regular readers may remember that the last tyres I had on the Suzuki were...
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Pulling finger at last
Earlier this month, I made a post about scanning old photos we had stored everywhere round the house in boxes. Some of them were beyond salvage (a flooded basement garage a couple of years back didn't...
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Odds and ends
NZ is now at Level 1 in the fight against Covid -19. 22 days since the last reported new case and no active cases. What this effectively means is that life is pretty close to pre-Covid days for us...
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A nice winter outing and other stuff
Yesterday was the first get-together for the Central North Island region of the Institute of Advanced Motorists since life returned to pretty much normal after lockdown ended a few weeks back. It's...
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Back to the Future
Let's face it, 2020 has been a year that most of us would prefer to forget. After more than 100 days of being C-19 free, it's reappeared in NZ again. At the time of writing this, it's small and...
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The elephant in the room
Well, it came sooner than expected but we've just addressed the elephant in the room. Going back to late last year, I suffered a torn retina whilst riding the bike. My eye filled with blood and...
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Busy, busy, busy!
With spring having arrived and relatively few C-19 restrictions in NZ, it's been a busy week with more to come over the next few weeks. Regular readers know that a lot of my riding is as an Examiner...
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The KTM 790 at 18 months - a progress report
A hooligan machine if ever there was one!An IAM friend of mine who has owned multiple European and Japanese bikes recently said, "There is a special corner of Hell reserved for MV and Moto Guzzi...
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A bit of variety
There's been plenty going on in our neck of the woods over the last fortnight. With national school holidays, pretty nice weather and no lockdowns, families have been flocking into our area which is a...
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A wee bit of culture
I turned 73 a week ago and when Jennie asked me earlier what I wanted for my birthday, I struggled to think of anything apart from a Lotus 7 replica. Got "THE LOOK" so that was a non-starter. I then...
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Not quite a waste of two weeks!
Spring has sprung in NZ, lots of sunshine, temperatures in the mid-20's C and as the saying goes, a young man's thoughts turn to love. For ummm... more "mature" gentlemen such as me, such thoughts are...
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Getting sorted
Back in 2019, I published a post concerning snatchy brakes on the Duke 790. They weren't lethal, but it was certainly very noticeable at low speeds. A recommendation was made through the Duke 790...
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A year that wasn't all bad
From home - first light 2021My first inclinations were not to write anything about 2020 for obvious reasons. I also felt a bit of guilt because NZ dodged a bullet compared with most of the world,...
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Learning new skills
A number of motobloggers, me included; have made recent posts with some degree of philosophising about life in general, thanks to the nightmare of 2020. Call it a mental recalibration about...
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Enjoying summer
As previously mentioned, life in NZ has been close to normal since mid-2020 with the exception of on-going basic C-19 precautions and the odd community case which has been effectively dealt with....
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