All morning it could not decide whether to drizzle or just pour but the chubby lady on the BBC on Friday night had shown those charts where you keep your eye fixed on your home location while the computer sends grey and green and blue clouds over, and they clearly showed that the rain would have passed over by around 1pm.
One by one in the morning, potential ride leaders dropped out, so even with Maggie a bit under the weather I felt obliged to turn up at the Mansion for leadership duties. Have you noticed that when the skies look at last as if they are clearing up, the outgoing cloud has a spiteful finale? So it was, the rain quite heavy as soon as I left home for the half hour trip and getting worse as I approached Cheam. Even so, Beginners are a surprisingly hardy lot and it was a bit of a shock to arrive on the stroke of 1 and find no-one else at the Mansion.
Then, just as I was wondering which quick trip I would do solo before going home, they turned up one by one, the ones who usually go with Steve W. By five past the hour we had ourselves a convoy and the only question was where to go. Stuart, the only other registered leader, wanted Garsons Farm and me to lead, but I did not fancy the Christmas Shopping mania there and was anyway mentally prepared for the scheduled Leatherhead ride. We took a democratic vote but there was a huge majority of spoilt ballot papers and Leatherhead won by two votes to one.
And the rain stopped. So off we went through the fresh puddles, keeping up a lively pace. On the top of Wilmerhatch Lane where we stopped for a quick swig and to regroup, the leader spotted a window of blue sky far away over the gin and tonic belt of middle Surrey.
Coffee at Charlie and Gingers and by the time we got to Leatherhead Station we were cycling in intermittent sunshine, which I used to take a picture on Ashtead Common.
Stuart, Peter, Lorraine, Rob, Kasumi and John in the weak evening sunshine
So we got back to Nonsuch through Ewell Village in good time and in evening sunlight.
A pleasant, straightforward trip in good company. The only disappointment was to hear that Carolyn had turned up as designated leader for the two-o-clockers and no other riders showed up.
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