Spring is here…

After the hopeless, heartless darkness that is winter (?!) the clocks have gone back and the days are getting longer at last. And plants are awakening in the garden: the daffs are out and the lovely magnolia is flowering.

Smeeta also took this very cute photo of a blue tit taking refuge under the lip of the bonnet of the Golf… she had to persuade it to leave before she could set off for work!!

Ursie, Annette & Dani visit

The Lindenbergs came to visit this weekend: Ursie drove up Friday evening and we dropped her at Hemel station on Saturday morning to go into London to catch up with Kate. We had planned to take Annette and Dani to Butterfly World near St Albans, but we turned up there to find it was not opening until April…!! DOH. Instead we stopped at the Ferrari showroom at Chiswell to have a look at the blingy cars, and then headed in to St Albans: walked around the Cathedral grounds and then toured around the Saturday Market before stopping at Pizza Express for some food. We picked up Ursie from the station later and they headed home Sunday lunchtime in the Cinquecento.

Surbiton Wedding Fair

We drove over to my old college stomping ground of Kingston/Surbiton to go to a ‘retro’ Wedding Fair at Surbiton, just to see if they had any interesting ideas that we could throw in to the pot for our Big Day. There wasn’t a huge amount to see, but some nice little detail ideas. On the way out we popped in to the George & Dragon, which I used to frequent (literally) with Andy, John and Justin in our first couple of years at Kingston. It hasn’t changed much! We then headed home and via Amersham where we found a lovely Italian Restaurant: “Rucola”. Very good Carpaccio 😛 …

Cheap fairings from Hong Kong

I ordered some cheap ‘copy’ fairings from Hong Kong recently for the Ducati 999. The 999 Mono Nero (single seat / black) was a limited edition and only 50 were imported into the UK, so I want to keep the original fairings in their current immaculate state. I have a paint-scheme in mind and Larry Frost at Illusion Racepaint has his spray-gun at the ready…

The fairings arrived at work in a big cardboard box and I’ve now had a good look over the panels to make sure all is well. The surface finish is not brilliant and I have since spent a good few evenings rubbing them down with wet’n’dry sand paper and filling any substantial pock-marks with resin filler. I’ve also trial-fitted the panels to the bike, and generally everything has fitted well. I need to fabricate a fixing for the rear tail-unit, which I plan to make with some modelling putty and a M6 threaded bolt. Will then drop the panels off with Larry and wait…

Dining Table arrives…

After last year’s furniture disaster (ordered table, chairs and sideboard from a St Albans shop which then wen bust) we found a very nice table & chairs in the ex-display section at Fishpools in Waltham Cross. It was delivered a week or two later and we are very pleased with it: I prefer it to the one we’d originally ordered in fact 🙂

Andy and Carole have a very similar table and chairs from John Lewis, though larger, and considerably more expensive. Job well done!

Ducati Bling

I’ve just fitted some upgrades to the 999s: more for style than anything, but it’s also part of the fun of it to make your bike unique with some nice detail changes. I bought some carbon-fibre heel plates which are very light and complement the carbon-fibre rear hugger and exhaust guard.

Extending the black theme I also bought a new clutch pressure plate, stainless steel springs with gold alloy caps and an open clutch cover. Ducati sports-bikes are famous for their dry clutches (ie: not immersed in oil like a wet clutch) so it’s almost obligatory to show off the rotating clutch basket by replacing the standard cover with an ‘open’ one. Many colours and styles are available, but I wanted a fairly subtle combo that would suit the Mono Nero. Am pleased with the result!

Whilst I had the clutch apart I took the opportunity to clean the clutch plates and then wipe them lightly with white lithium grease – a tip picked up from a US Ducati forum which apparently makes for smoother get-aways… We’ll see if that works once the snow’s gone!!

Carbon-fibre heel guards

New clutch pressure plate, springs and ‘open’ cover

The original clutch cover

Standard pressure plate – not special…

Removing the springs

Clutch basket and plate stack

Clutch plates removed

Stack of clutch plates: ‘frictions and steels’

Cleaned and white lithium grease applied, left overnight

Reassembled with new pressure plate and springs / caps. Nice 🙂

Roots Manuva in the Snow!

Saturday found us in London wandering around the shops in the afternoon and stopping at a little Cyrpiot eatery for fish n chips and some nice ‘local’ Keo beer. We then went to a pub on Tottenham Court Road to watch some Six Nations rugby, before heading to the Camden Roundhouse for a great gig: Roots Manuva. Brilliant night, but when we left the venue there was an inch or two of snow on the ground! We made it to Euston ok but then found that no trains were leaving, and when we did eventually get on a train it became stuck only ten minutes out of Euston. We eventually got back to Hemel at about 2:30, and then struggled to drive up the big hill to Bovingdon, wheels spinning in the fresh snow…!