Saturday 29th February 2020

Thanks to the storm strewn February 2020 this was the second social gathering in as many weeks minus bikes, these ‘café starts’ (as opposed to café stops) may become a regular feature if global warming continues unattenuated in the Garstang region. Amazingly, around 20 members drove up to Daisy Clough that morning, I as RC decided that this was too large a group & although risk assessments have considered 3 groups of 6 to be an appropriate number I decided that 2 groups of 10 might safely be accommodated on 2 tables, just so long as they wore crash helmets. As the event unfolded someone remarked that as so many had turned up on the day I must be incredibly popular among the membership, although I disputed that suggestion as whenever I am in charge of any actual cycling which involves pedalling outdoors in rain, hail, sleet & snow, no bugger turns up, it is consuming cake & coffee indoors which obviously draws in our colleagues, although in the words of the inimitable Mr Durrigan, ‘it’s supposed to be a cycling club, not a bloody dining club’! Considering that the Met’ Office had forewarned of gales, floods & a plague of locusts of biblical proportions the day outside displayed liberal amounts of blue sky & sunshine, ostensibly therefore Storm Jorge was still in Barcelona, although the locusts had already appeared to have made some inroads into the scones. One novel feature of our event was the prevalence of some canine members, 4 to be precise who had hitched a lift in with their owners despite having their own Pinarellos back home, which I am led to believe are all Dogmas! I sat with Malcolm at one point in the proceedings, who is the first to admit his hearing is no longer what it used to be, he remarked that in relative proficiency there was not much between his ears, I replied that I know a number of people with not much between their ears, indeed a few were sitting at the next table. So as our members began to repair to their vehicles Bob, Malcolm & I remained in discussion on a corner of our table by ourselves, whilst conversing we were unaware that we were impeding the movement of other diners, unfortunately we are as cyclists often guilty of blocking junctions, even when we’re sitting in tearooms, sorry Pip!