Keep your shades on and your mouth shut......

..... has been the order of the day since Monday.  What the birds don't digest, we do.  That, or they splatter themselves all over our bikes and clothing.

The weather (not the weather, AGAIN) has been, shall we say, rather changeable.  Two days ago we hit (or, it hit us to be more precise) the worst storm we have ever cycled through.  We were completely exposed, on a dyke, it hit without warning and the best we could do was throw on our waterproofs, stuff the mobile phone into something dry, throw the bikes down said dyke and head for a copse to take shelter.  It's the only time I've been pleased to be wearing a bash hat, because if I hadn't I would have been impaled several times by branches flying through the air at eleventy billion miles an hour.  Roll on 20 mins and we have to drag the bikes through the recently ploughed muddy field, up the dyke, onto the cycle path which now resembles something of an obstacle course the like of which is only seen after tornadoes with names like Kylie or Tremayne.  What doesn't kill you makes you stronger ........

Moving on several days (I will get better at documenting more contemporaneously, I promise) and we have had some absolutely gorgeous weather, so much so that we have had to dig the sunscreen out of the bottom of my pannier.  We moved away from the Rhine onto the Mosel for a day, but now we are back.  We are currently in a place called Worms, and it's all about Martin Luther here.

Today we have done something we rarely do.  We have planned the next week of cycling.  We are relying on Google Maps and Archies Camping app, but it's not easy on a smart phone, so we have resorted to old skool techniques, like pen and paper, and have made a list.  This is what a day at the office looks like:

I spotted a beauty of a butterfly today, but would he stop flapping his wings?  I have a selection of photos with wings closed but only one, slightly fuzzy one, with his wings open.  The flower was pretty too.

I don't want to talk about the itchiness of my mosquito bites because I'm afraid it will just make them itch even more.  What I need is someone with a spritzer of ice cold water following me around, spraying the backs of my legs every 1`0 mins.  I suggested it to BW but he pretended not to hear me.

The plan is that we reach the start of the Danube cycle way in approx 8 days time.  I will keep you updated, hopefully, along the way.

Laters

Martin Luther and friends

Mr Butterfly

A day at the office