A beautiful Sunday...

Wow! - Sunday October 10th 2010 - and the weather felt more like June. Gary and I had been enlisted to help with cooking breakfasts at Netherseal Village Hall, there was a 'garage sale' taking place and so the village was teeming with people looking for a bargain. Naturally there was an opportunity to take advantage of the crowds and make some money towards the 'flowers for the village' campaign. By lunchtime we had sold out - in fact demand was such that we had to relieve Marion's shop of her entire stock of bacon! - I think we sold over £350 worth of breakfast rolls - not bad for a few hours.

Because the weather was so unusually clement we felt the need to get out and put a few miles in - a 4.00pm meet was deemed appropriate and a fellow rider (Paul Robinson) was drafted in to make up the peloton!. I had packed away my shorts and short sleeved top - I had to get them out again - such was the temperature!.

We decided on one of our training routes which meant a rendezvous at 'The Odd House' on the edge of Snarestone/Newton Burgoland and set off with the sun blazing and a spring in our pedals. It went well and we bowled along at a fast pace down through Snarestone, across to Appleby Magna, Austrey, Thorpe Constantine, Clifton Campville and then up to Haunton. We took the gated road through to Wigginton all the time keeping up a high cadence and an impressive average speed. We paused to sip energy drinks before continuing through to Harlaston and then the long road back up to Clifton and on to No Man's Heath - from there we joined the busy main road to the M42 island. junction 11, down into Appleby again and back to Snarestone - we split up there, I went along the Derby Lane to Shackerstone and Congerstone and then home - Gary and Paul R went via Measham. It was a particularly enjoyable outing because the conditions were so favourable - very soon we'll be wearing thermal vests, coats, industrial type gloves etc etc - I had covered 43 miles by the time I got home - and I enjoyed every minute.