Great Britain has had a rubbish summer. I know this for two reasons: first, I wasn’t there, and secondly because the Met Office confirmed that it’d been the coldest summer for nine years.

I spent June, July and most of August out of the country, staying at our place in South Africa. But because the technology makes it so easy, I frequently checked the weather back home and found that, almost every time I checked, it was warmer and sunnier in the depths of South Africa’s winter. This was great for riding, because most days down there it was in the low 20s, dry and sunny. Unfortunately, I didn’t get out on the bikes that much because my wife and I had committed to major house maintenance: sanding all external woodwork (and there’s a lot of it) back to bare wood and applying three coats of varnish, with careful application of wire wool and turpentine between coats. That took about seven weeks.

Then, in the absence of a plumber willing to do the work, we spend about three weeks installing a whole new wastewater treatment system, which was exacting, laborious and ultimately successful. In between times, I got out on the newly repaired V-Strom and the trusty Tiger 800; unfortunately, the TL1000S had developed a bad case of seized front brakes, so the green beauty had to stay in the garage. I’ll get to it next time.

Back in England, it was now late August. My wife wanted to get some riding time in on her new CB125, and I wanted to get better acquainted with my “new” (to me) Gold Wing. Hah! They’d been on trickle chargers and were all ready to go, but it was raining. Or cold. Or both. We had to wait until about the last day of August to brave the elements, but we did manage it.

We rode some wonderfully empty backroads up into the Yorkshire Dales to the Cat and Fiddle pub, which was closed. Turns out it’s been closed for years and now operates as a whisky distillery. I’ve passed it many times without knowing! Happily, we were there for the roads, the views, the sunshine and the fresh air, and there was plenty of all four. It was the first time we’d used our Shoei Neotec 2 Sena intercoms bike-to-bike, which was novel, and they worked well. Normally for us it’s just a rider-pillion thing. There was a bit of whistle through the system from the wind, I admit, but we’ll figure that out. For now, it was just an opportunity to enjoy our new bikes. Peter professed herself happy with the 125, while I wondered why I’d waited so long to get a Wing. It’s fabulously comfortable, natch, but handles like a bike several hundred pounds lighter. Brakes well, plenty of power for my needs, great torque. It’ll take us back to Norway next summer and, if the weather doesn’t play nice, the Wing will take it all in its stride.