Meeting of minds
Ever since I have arrived in England, the weather has been glorious. 25o days, clear blue skies and lots of bugs and creepy crawlies.
Made arrangements to meet up with Ian, one of the members of BikeClubFrance who have given me so much help and advice in the last few months, planning for this trip.
I mapped out a route to avoid all the major freeways and set off in glorious sunshine, liberally dosed in sunscreen.
I was cruising along felling the cooling breeze through my vented Matador jacket and thought
"I must stop and do up my cuffs a bit tighter coz I don't want a bee up my sleeve"
30 seconds later, a wasp flew up my sleeve and stung me on my arm.
I immediately pulled over and out flew the wasp. He had been up there for about 20 seconds so I guess I'm lucky he didn't sting me three or four times. Once was painful enough.
I was once stung by a bee - in the neck - and that was horrendously itchy and swollen so I'm hoping this bite won't get that bad.
I continued on to meet Ian and Laura at Box Hill and we spent the afternoon at a Bikers Café, chatting and comparing notes. We asked a guy from the next table to take our photo and he heard my accent and started asking questions about Australia. Turns out he is one of the Gladiators
- yeah I didn't know either, so I had to Google him - Laura was suitably impressed though. He has a famous son too but their conversation went way over my head.
The other guy was a controller of the London Bus traffic system so I got a full education about buslanes and bikes, and the traffic improvements (or otherwise) in London since the Congestion Charge.
Laura, Ian and I then headed off to Newlands which has a terrific view over the countryside. I rode home through that glorious countryside and got wonderfully lost - and found again.
Excellent day and lovely people. Bloody wasp bite is itchy as hell though.
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