Well, we wondered, where has all the time gone recently! Suddenly here we are in September of 2007 with time fast disappearing after our summer journey and June 1st 2008 beckoning in the near distance.

When we were pondering what to write for this month's update we eventually settled on the biggest piece of news. As always though, we will update as we go along and as things develop.

The highs and lows of attracting support seem to swing the two of us from mountain tops to deep valleys of despair. It's a bit like a roller-coaster getting this show on the road! It really is.

When we were televised on Sky and Virgin Digital Channels, at that point, we were  approached by the marketing arm of William's BMW of Manchester. This contact held out the prospect of the loan of a bike for the duration of the journey. We did - like two young kids much to our shame and embarrassment - get very excited at this (way too excited for people of our advanced age).

Our faith in what we are setting out to achieve received a massive boost at this point. We thought the support of a major manufacturer like BMW would allow us to reach far and wide into the world; it also removed several headaches from Bernard regarding technical support. The tumbling of the dominoes starting to fall could be heard in our heads.

Unfortunately it did not come to fruition and we were left with the hollow sound of a dull thud rather than the 'click, click' of dominoes falling - we think it was the sound of being brought 'down to earth' as BMW declined to provide assistance. Nor did our links into BMW UK yield any results at all. We say no results at all although this is, technically, not true. The emails and phone calls pleased our utility providers in terms of the bills we received!

While this is true in terms of BMW not providing physical support for the journey, on another level the details of our journey have been spread far and wide by the public relations team. This has aided us greatly in terms of publicity and we would like to thank them for this valuable assistance.

Cathy is now huge in Hungary and well known in Spain and a host of other other countries thanks to their help.

In our talks across time with various other strands within BMW (both UK and Germany) as to the availability of any support we found that the main headquarters in Germany are already committed in terms of resources. This support is being directed to the (past) present and (probable) further trips by Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman and their own fantastic adventures around the world. 

We wish Charlie and Ewan much success and look forward to the release of the "Long Way Down" in print, TV and on DVD. We shall be glued to the TV to follow their own fantastic second trip (the first being the "Long Way Round") from John O'Groats to Cape Town which they aptly called "The Long Way Down". We will  devour every word of the book (bought on the first day of release we can assure you!) The same will be true for their "Long Way Up" where they plan to travel the same route as ourselves up through the Americas. Perhaps we will meet on the road somewhere, sometime, if they get going around the same time as ourselves! Now that would be pretty awesome! Best of luck to the both of them for their efforts in achieving a remarkable journey.  

Anyway, while BMW's rejection came to pass, it would be true to say that, initially and in the first instance, we had wanted to approach Triumph Motorcycles. This was not a slight on BMW bikes but a romantic set of thoughts - largely driven by Bernard - which he hoped would unfold.

The prospect of two British people, performing a journey in Aid of three British Charities on a British Bike had a certain appeal to us although BMW pre-empted our approach to Triumph. So we waited to see the outcome of BMW's thoughts once they came to us rather than complicate matters by approaching Triumph at the same time.

Alas Triumph was not to be either as - for various reasons - Triumph motorcycles have now also turned down our approach for the loan of a bike for Cathy's Charity Journey (or CCJ as we now call it). The way the costs are escalating it may well be that the CCJ will eventually mean a County Court Judgement against Bernard! But that's another point.

Thus as we write this we will still be travelling on the 1990 BMW which got us safely around Europe and through the recent test run from Land's End to John O'Groats.

It's quite funny really but many people attach a certain 'excitement' to the trials and tribulations which making the journey on a 1990 bike will probably incur. People have actually commented on this - making the point that it adds a dimension to the journey. They mean this by way of the fact that you would expect a 'new' bike to complete 25,000 miles without major mishap to its internal workings! Any bike which could not do 25,000 miles without imploding would be a poor machine we're sure you would agree!

And so, onwards and upwards to the next mountain top, or deep valley.......who knows!