Kevs World!

With the Conigsee to Bodinsee epic behind us all our efforts are focused on getting to Heidelberg before our train journey to Paris , and for that reason we have really been putting in the hard yards - can you believe we had two monstrous days on the bike of 55 and 46 km so fatigue is really a telling factor  .  A rest day today in Nurtingen was therefore fully deserved ( are they sniggers i can hear in the background ).
My trip could have come to a very abrupt end when hooning down a hill at 60kph i could feel a bumping in my rear tyre and from previous experience i knew exactly what it was - my tyre was splitting around the rim and a bulge was appearing just cherry ripe to burst , so i was a bit careful after that limiting my hooning to 55kph .
Mike's brake problems have been fixed thankfully because i was getting tired of following him across open grass paddocks in his deviation exploits thinking it doesn't look right but he has all the maps and knows where he's going - i find it much simpler to ride on the bitumen . Off -road no.2 was captured on his headcam so should make for comical viewing .
 Our trip to the Bodinsee took us through many villages , some less than 1km apart , separated by lush green rolling pastures - the amazing part is there no fences in those pastures so who owns what is anyones guess . In each of these villages the houses , some many hundreds of years old , are impeccably maintained and presented with large planter boxes of predominantly red flowers at the base of each window - houses without these flowers looked decidedly plain in comparison .
I am resisting fairly well the urge to attack the delicious array of cakes on offer but it is taking all my willpower- needless to say when Viv arrives the threat of bodily harm if i refuse to partake will over-ride my willpower . Litchy is showing admirable properties of  "will " power also when ordering his cake , will it be this one or that one - one slab substitutes for a 3 course meal .
In the past 5 years i would have had a handful of beers but Litchfield has corrupted me into ordering a half litre nearly every mealbefore dinner - a spell at AA could be on if this continues . After oür Greek meal last night the waitress bought out a complimentary shot of OUZO so that turned the nasal hairs curly when we threw it down .
Bobbert Leedham , now i know what you had to put up with for 3 weeks in NZ with Litchy's exploding suitcase , he has bought 2 exploding panniers which seem to go off every night , must be the same brand .His method of unpacking is simple and uncomplicated - pick up the pannier at the bottom and tip out the contents , the biblical system then applies ie:seek and you shall find . Works perfectly every time - chaos reigns supreme . On the odd occasion when staff have seen our room they have assumed a ransacking has occurred has taken place and got the hell out of there .My side is impeccably tidy - well sorta kinda anyway.
It's been an amazing trip so far with some really tough sections , in UK mainly , and now we are being repaid in kind by the flatter beautiful countryside in Germany .
The tough part is yet to come when Viv and Linton demand we do anything up to 25km per day in France to reach the next coffee shop - will be tiring but i'm sure we can manage .
Stay well and keep cycling or anything , you never know what's around the corner .
Best Wishes to Everyone
Kev