Obscure bucket list items

[rogerzilla]

I need to break 60mph on a bike.  It's unlikely down Snap Hill these days, due to crap chipsealing, although I've managed 57mph there.  Pork Hill from Merrivale to Tavistock on Dartmoor is almost perfect (after you've crossed the cattle grid) but a long way to go.  Someone from St Budeaux CC in Plymouth reckoned it was good for 72mph.

This is where you start pedalling like mad, then tuck everything in and kiss your arse goodbye: Pork Hill
https://maps.app.goo.gl/w9bJ3xbaTGXYQZb59

[Lightning Phil]

“I wanna command a squadron of tanks!” ~ Ron Nasty

More prosaically, I wanna get a vehicle from one of the specialist car hire firms in Fairbanks and drive the other 413 miles of the Dalton Highway I bottled out of in 2018.  If they’re really good I'll bring it back too

Just get a bog standard ford 4x4 truck.  It’s what I did in 2000, no biggie. It’s just gravel and graded in summer.

[Mr Larrington]

Yebbut most car hire companies specifically forbid driving on unpaved roads* so you’ll be in deep doo-doo if anything goes wrong.

* I may have broken this rule once or twice, but not for 800 miles

[Peter]

Skate on a river
Row the Tyne
French pâtisserie training

They're not unachievable.

Lovely choices!  I'm sure you know you share the first one with Joni Mitchell.  Do you mean the length of the Tyne?  If it's across, then Kathryn Tickell could play "Waters of Tyne" for you while you do it.  I know you'd like that.  As for the French patisserie, let me know when you've done it (Viennese would be fine, too!)

Skating along frozen Dutch canals has always been a draw.
So much better than going round and round on an ice rink.
Sadly, I think that climate change will have put an end to opportunities for such activities.

I might have to go to Canada or Alaska for the skating. I'd be singing Joni for all the time I was doing it.

There's a Great Tyne Row which I think I can get on to, a project for 2024.

I can't remember if I've told you before and this is a deliberate wind up, but I was at school with Kathryn Tickell (she was sort of in the same friendship group as my sister), and I can't stand her and her a) rewriting her own history and b) professional Northumbrianism. I would sing my own Waters of Tyne. I sang it to Mr Smith once when we were in Gateshead and he gave me a look.

The patisserie might end up being the hardest to do as it's a 3 year course. I'd like to think I'd get to do a recreational one at some point though.

Yep, definite wind-up!  You told me after I'd mentioned that I'd seen her play as a teenager at a gig in Northumberland.  But it was my gig and I got the money!  I think it was probably when I met you and Smith on the York to Tan Hill overnighter.  I have lovely memories of that adventure.  Hope all is ok with you.

[Captain Nemo]

My mother had Waters of Tyne played at her woodland burial on the Northumbrian small pipes by her friend and near neighbour Carole Robb.

[peterc]

Skating along frozen Dutch canals has always been a draw.
So much better than going round and round on an ice rink.
Sadly, I think that climate change will have put an end to opportunities for such activities.

You would think but this year has been okay for Natural Ijs in Holland and the Fens in the UK have frozen enough for skating on two occasions, enough even for me to drive up there and have a go.

I doubt we will have a complete running of the Elfstedentocht but you can always go to the lake in Austria if you want to scratch that itch.

[Peter]

My mother had Waters of Tyne played at her woodland burial on the Northumbrian small pipes by her friend and near neighbour Carole Robb.

You're taking me back, now, Captain, to various versions of the Ranters and Jim Hall and Carole and so on.  I know you don't live there. but does your family hail from Newcassel, or maybe Alnwick?

[Captain Nemo]

Born and bred Alnwickist (but with West Riding & Essex herritage), although as you know I'm now south of the Tyne and the wrong( ) side of the Pennines.

[Peter]

   Great bookshop in Alnwick - or there certainly was.  Hope it's not swamped itself in Harry Potter, though one couldn't blame them for taking advantage.  We used to visit on holiday in South Charlton/East Ditchburn.

[neilrj]

  Great bookshop in Alnwick - or there certainly was.  Hope it's not swamped itself in Harry Potter, though one couldn't blame them for taking advantage.  We used to visit on holiday in South Charlton/East Ditchburn.

Barter Books in the old station, fantastic place.

[robgul]

  Great bookshop in Alnwick - or there certainly was.  Hope it's not swamped itself in Harry Potter, though one couldn't blame them for taking advantage.  We used to visit on holiday in South Charlton/East Ditchburn.

Barter Books in the old station, fantastic place.

. . . and an excellent cafe in the old ticket office/waiting room.

[neilrj]

  Great bookshop in Alnwick - or there certainly was.  Hope it's not swamped itself in Harry Potter, though one couldn't blame them for taking advantage.  We used to visit on holiday in South Charlton/East Ditchburn.

Barter Books in the old station, fantastic place.

. . . and an excellent cafe in the old ticket office/waiting room.

Does it still have a toy train running around above the bookshelves?

[robgul]

  Great bookshop in Alnwick - or there certainly was.  Hope it's not swamped itself in Harry Potter, though one couldn't blame them for taking advantage.  We used to visit on holiday in South Charlton/East Ditchburn.

Barter Books in the old station, fantastic place.

. . . and an excellent cafe in the old ticket office/waiting room.

Does it still have a toy train running around above the bookshelves?

It did a couple of years ago when we were last there.

[Mr Larrington]

  Great bookshop in Alnwick - or there certainly was.  Hope it's not swamped itself in Harry Potter, though one couldn't blame them for taking advantage.  We used to visit on holiday in South Charlton/East Ditchburn.

Barter Books in the old station, fantastic place.

Weren't they the folks responsible for the popularity of “Keep Calm And Carry On” a few years back after discovering a wartime poster in a box of Old Stuffs?

[rogerzilla]

They were.

I've been in a few times.  They're not cheap but it's a nice place to spend an hour.

[Moleman76]

Yebbut most car hire companies specifically forbid driving on unpaved roads* so you’ll be in deep doo-doo if anything goes wrong.

* I may have broken this rule once or twice, but not for 800 miles

There might be a "Rent a Dent" car rental service up north with suitable vehicles.  Just watch out for moose crossing the road.

[Mr Larrington]

Yebbut most car hire companies specifically forbid driving on unpaved roads* so you’ll be in deep doo-doo if anything goes wrong.

* I may have broken this rule once or twice, but not for 800 miles

There might be a "Rent a Dent" car rental service up north with suitable vehicles.  Just watch out for moose crossing the road.

There are, or at least were, a couple of specialist outfits in Fairbanks whose USP was that you could drive the Dalton in their vehicles.  Not sure I'd trust anything else.  Doubly so if it's got a space-saver spare wheel.