Brrr! Certainly not Kingston, Jamaica! The Sutton pod, 5 December.

We adapted our original idea, to go to Bushy Park, in order to see the Kingston lights this week, the first weekend since the second Lockdown.  We reckoned that if we left Sutton Library at one we should be able to make a round trip of it before darkness fell.

We took a familiar route through Worcester Park and Tolworth.  It was pretty cold and grey and I was very tempted by the coffee shop at Long Ditton but we carried on through to Hampton Court Bridge, and had coffee there, figuring that although it is traditional to get two thirds of the ride done before the break, Kingston would be crowded with newly-released Christmas shoppers.

Paul, Anna, Roger, Ray, Ken & Maggie in the cold garden awaiting the hot beverages!

In one way we were lucky to get the table for six in the garden but sitting still, albeit with company and a hot drink, was not keeping us warm and nobody was eager to linger.  The temperature had dropped a few degrees when we came out and there were indigo clouds that hinted at snow.  The theory was that if we got moving we would keep warm but the east wind blowing along the river cut right through you.  Isn't it amazing how that mixture of damp wind and impending sleet can make a few degrees above freezing in England more uncomfortable than much lower temperatures on foreign mountaintops, even if you are lucky enough to be wearing Merino wool.

It was perishing on the towpath and in that other delightful English phenomenon, the north easterly wind became a south easterly one as soon as we turned across Kingston Bridge.  So by the time we got to the centre of Kingston none of us was much interested in dawdling to see the lights; home became the priority.

The home route was past the cemetery and through Berrylands before we began to go our separate ways on the south side of Worcester Park Station.  Who should we meet at North Cheam Sainsbury's but Sue Bellamy, fresh from a long walk but grumbling about her Strava failing to record seven miles of it!

We did get back in daylight, just, and we felt we had had a really pleasant if bracing exercise.  Door to door just over 43 kilometres at something over 15 Km/H.  For us to linger at those lights the temperature will have to rise a touch!