The Great Escape; Cretaceous Park Beginners to Elmers End 19 July.

Over fifty years ago, when we were first married, Maggie and I used to live on Crystal Palace Park Road and I wrote to the council then that the security arrangements at Crystal Palace Park were completely inadequate for the beasts kept there.  They seemed to think I was some kind of fruitcake when I told them their so-called-extinct Dinosaurs were playing possum and you could see by the fact that they were millimetres out of the previous day's position that they became active at night and those puny fences would never keep them out should they get adventurous.  Even the Raving Loony Party candidate of the time would not give me the time of day.  

Well, the councillors have moved on, the Raving Loony Party would no longer be PC, and Maggie and I moved away a while ago.  But when you have been living nocturnally one hundred and fifty thousand times longer than Dracula, fifty years is not even an instant, and this week my apocalyptic prediction has materialised.  The dinosaurs have escaped.  The horror can be seen on Anna's face as she fails to differentiate between a herbivorous monster and a carnivorous one.  Anyway, she might be right.  It's a little-known fact that Stegosaurus killed as many humans as did Tyrannosaurus.

We could not get out of Cretaceous Park fast enough, Dominika, Maggie, Anna, Roger and me.

It's behind you, it's behind you

It had been throwing it down most of the morning but we had a dry run in reasonably pleasant though increasingly muggy weather, using the Greenwich route of last week to get to Elmers End, and the Addiscombe Park and Lloyd Park route to get back.  No monsters in those places.

A modest, enjoyable ride.

But steer clear of Beddington; the fences there are no better than those at Crystal Palace.