Well, the kind and dry autumn weather we've been experiencing went well and truly out of the window this week, with rain, rain and more rain in the run up to the weekend. The forecast for Saturday was, yes, rain all morning, so I wasn't overly optimistic about numbers, especially with the lure of warm shopping centres to tempt people away.
Anyway, once assembled and ready to go, we made a magnificent 8 and headed out west along through the Abinger Roughs, past Rad Lane and on before turning north for Pitch Hill. The forecast heavy rain started rolling in just in time to fix a puncture on the last stretch of climb, and all being very wet by this point, we elected to head straight for the shop at Peaslake. En route the very, very wet run down Supernova, puddles very definitely included, made sure that any last remaining dry bits from the waist down were soaked. Fun though.
Hot food and tea at Peaslake raised the spirits, and a shortened route back was worked out after the full intended route over Holmbury and Leith was ruled out (on grounds of time, not the weather, oh no sir). Up the tarmac to warm up, Yoghurt Pots, Telegraph soon we were passing the Volunteer. The slippery farm track back to the A25 claimed two crashes on the very slippery surface and nearly drowned a few with some impressively deep puddles. A quick turn east and we were back. A tad under 20 miles in 'slightly damp' conditions is a good start to cancelling out that Christmas dinner!
Mat