When I was a nipper the early morning Saturday main event was the radio. We'd shuffle out of bed and head for the cornflakes and twiddle the knobs on the wireless set
until we found Junior Choice, the airwave's venue for such classics as "Messing about on the River", "Little White Bull" and our favourite, "Camp Grenada".

Now, back then we really never understood what this American "camp" thing was all about, "Hullo Mudda, Hullo Fadda" we could vaguely grasp, but not the camp thing. For us, "camp" was two or three old sheets strung between the clothes lines, but it was a funny song.

It was many years later when we lived in Boston USA that we finally fully understood what the song was all about. Over worked parents pay exhorbitant amounts of money to send the kids to live in basic huts in a mosquito infested wood, beside a lake.

However, times have changed and from recent, first hand observation, nowadays it seems "camp" is run in a converted concrete, ex retail establishment or possibly a mini theme park where kids can see various feathered friends, llamas, goats. If you're lucky, there's a splash pad full of water fountains, giant buckets filling and emptying onto screaming kids and water slides which the health and safety executive has made so safe, with so little incline, skinny kids with a sticky bum come to a halt half way down and walk the rest.

In my day, slides were in a slightly boggy council park and about thirty feet in the air. If you fell off and survived, you'd either bounce or break. The concept of compensation was as yet unheard of. On the odd hot Scottish summer days "crafting" was playing with the melted tar at the side of the road and a splash pad meant it was raining. Again.

We enjoyed our weeks in North America with the families and now, we're back on two hulls making final preparations to leave behind the winter weather of Cape Town and head north. And of course, having been here for eight months we're now up against the clock to get all the "do before we leave" items off the check list. And if the forecast doesn't improve we'll be here for some time yet.

But wait a minute........it's stopped raining, guys are swimming, guys are sailing.......... kindly disregard this letter.

Earth shattering news from the US of A today.

First up - Team Time Bandit is heading back to Cape Town in the morning. Dollar plummets.

Next up - they’re actually planning on going sailing!

And lastly - Here in Massachusetts, car giant Mazda is launching a new model that gets…… wait for it….. thirty miles per gallon. WOW! The planet can breathe again.

Here you go. The LAST biking video from South Africa. Honest! Then we'll get back on two hulls. Honest!

We've put over fifteen thousand African kilometres under our two wheels and all of it has been amazing. If you have the chance or perhaps wondering where you might find some winter sun, try South Africa and Cape Town. Trust me.

And next, starting w/c 1st August we trade bike helmets and Kevlar clothing for sun shades and sun burn as we make a start on the last leg of our circumnavigation;

Cape Town, Namibia, St Helena, , Ascension, Brazil, Surinam and onto the Caribbean. Tough, but someone's got to do it. Come along for the ride.

I thought I’d get this trip video done a lot faster than I am. We’re nearly there though. This video gets us into the Cederberg, lost right enough, but closer to Cape Town.

Hope you like it.

We’re on a granny run to Toronto. so no bikes and no boat for a week or two yet.

Today, it’s Canada Day and we’re out at Aberfoyle (?) at the bouncy castles, three legged races and axe throwing. There’s also free coffee and pancakes for the over 65’s. I think that’s years, not kilos. Later on there’s going to be fireworks, both of the dealing with exhausted, screaming kids kind and the combustible, explosive kind.

Wandering around playing sheepdog to a small child, a young mother doing likewise mentioned I looked quite hot. “Still got it” I thought, “even with my red, swollen, pollen eyes.” Then I realised it was 38c. But, hey, you never know. There’s always hope.

All of this fun and eats courtesy of the local Optimist Club of Puslinch.

I expect it’s going to rain later.

Border crossings, miles and miles through Africa and still, we’re not there yet.

“There” of course being out sailing.
Until then, here’s more of what we got up to on our tour of Southern Africa, checking out the beasties.

Can you believe it? Something approaching winter weather has appeared in Cape Town.

The good news is that with tipping rain outside, rather than the usual blazing sunshine, I could sit down for a few hours with a clear conscience and come up with this latest piece of creative genius.

Hope you like and indeed, tempted to "smash" that like button.

After our tough day out conquering the fringes of the Southern Ocean, went out for dinner with Susan and Mark from Erie Spirit next door, the only other boat still here. Everyone else long since checked into the Caribbean, USA or, coincidentally, our marina in Scotland.

It was 2 for 1 night at the burger joint and as the ”waitron” - that’s a new, politically correct, non discriminatory, gender neutral and very silly term we’ve started seeing on restaurant menus these days. My theory is that we’re being softened up, much like our waistlines, for the day when an R2-D2 style robot is doing the waiting at tables.
Or, perhaps it’s from a Harry Potter movie and our hero may have yelled at his pal, “Hey - Wait Ron”.

Anyway, our server took our order. Three different drinks, four different burgers with three different sides…….and accurately delivered what we’d ordered in jig time.

Me? I’d have been three paces from the table wondering if the guy in the black jacket had ordered sweet potato chips or was it plain chips! And what did the women want?

The memory these young folk possess is impressive. Or it’s a hidden voice recorder but no way could I do it.

Which is why, yesterday when we took the boat out to look at the new sails, run the water maker and bla bla bla, I thought that as it’s a lovely day and as there’s a good chance that when we leave in seven or eight weeks in mid-winter it won’t be, “let’s shoot a quick departure video and I’ll file it for my, “Yo Dudes, We Smashed Africa And We’re Outta Here” video.

And then forgot all about it. Which is why there was all the Social Meedya confusion yesterday when said post appeared, implying we had indeed set off

Comprendez? Good. Well, having cleared that up I’m off to fix the table. Now, where’d I leave the Dremel?