I've been working. No, really.At the Horizons Unlimited Travellers' Meeting in North Carolina I ended up doing around three hours of presentation plus loads of Q&A, and still haven't got my voice back properly. The Old Dear did her bit as well acting as a model example of how to set up the bike's ergonomics properly.

I spent the previous three days with Phil the Boxerman at Charlie's farm in Virginia, in the Appalachians close to the Tennessee border. What a nice chap, and such a treat eating proper food from the garden and steak from his own cattle. Not to mention just sitting on the porch beside a mound of cats and kittens, watching the woodpeckers and humming birds.

The it was a swift dash across the state to the Airheads' Gathering of the Clans, where Phil did a proper job on my rear main oil seal as a tech session, beautifully sited in the campsite bar (which also means I owe him another case of Paddy's).

Now I'm back at Stan's place in Florida, doing the shipping paperwork and other mundane stuff like sending parcels home - don't think I'll be needing the winter kit for a while, really. The RAC are FedExing my Carnet, spare parts for 'stock' should arrive today, Amazon are sending the Lonely Planet for South Africa together with the complete Blackadder as a thank-you to Stan. Then as soon as all that's sorted it's off to Atlanta to be crated again (hopefully the last time) and to do battle with impenetrable airline baggage rules.