Day 0

Hey, computer start counting at zero.

Yesterday I set up the travel blog. Shortly after sending the URL to mates, I received an email from the blog site claiming that it is a "spam blog", so they've locked it. I clicked the link the email and I get this text:

"Your blog is locked

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive."

Two things.

1. WTF is a "false positive". There is no such thing as a "false positive" - the word they were looking for is MISTAKE. They obviously can't own up to screwing up. Shrub has a lot to answer for.
2. If the had have bothered to read the bloody thing, they can see that it's just a travel blog.
3. (OK I can't count). If I had have received the email BEFORE distributing the URL, I would have gone elsewhere.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Day 0 - 1

It's almost time to go. Boris and I leave at 15:00 tomorrow to fly to Abu Dhabi for a 14 hour layover and then off to Manchester. I'm supposed to be there at 18:45 on Thursday. Friday afternoon at 15:45, I fly to Cork and fun times shall commence.

Draft itinerary is looking something like this:
Oct 3 - 5: Cork
Oct 6: Bantry (84 km)
Oct 7: Killough East (65 km)
Oct 8: Sneem (87 km)
Oct 9: Knights Town (73 km)
Oct 10: Tralee (72 km)
Oct 11: Limerick (97 km)
Oct 12 - 13: Galway (101 km)
Oct 14: Ballina (114 km km)
Oct 15: Enniskillen (129 km)
Oct 16 - 17: Derry (86 km)
Oct 18: Ballycastle (80 km)
Oct 19: Larne (65 km)
Oct 20 - 21: Belfast (40 km)
Oct 22: Downpatrick (63 km)
Oct 23: Newry (73 km)
Oct 24 - 25: Dublin (106 km)
Oct 26: Carlow (83 km)
Oct 27 - 28: Wexford (72 km)
Oct 29: Waterford (60 km)
Oct 30 - Nov 1: Cork (119 km)

I think that's 1,669 km.

And then we head back to Steak & Kidney

Boris is showing all the stuff I'll be attempting to squeeze into four Ortleib panniers for him to convey as well as me. Hey ho! Let's go!


Not that much later, it's all in. Boris is in his box.



And just to ensure that people know it's MY bicycle in there, I stamped the box.