Chalk and Cheese!

 It has been a week of extreme contrasts with two rides at the complete opposite ends of the British weather spectrum. On Tuesday I was off work and the sun was shining, for the first time this year I set off in shirt sleeves, no jacket and no waterproofs. It was a barmy 13 degree C and little wind. This was what I had been missing and to say I felt good was an understatement, forty miles lay ahead of me and it felt great. It was a day when all the hard graft of winter seemed to have payed off, for the first time I felt that Paris was in my reach and with an average pace of sixteen miles an hour I could have gone all day, it was just a shame that other things have to be done on my days off and forty was all I could fit in. However come the weekend and the good old British weather had taken a turn for the

worse, Sunday morning came and with it temperatures hovering a couple of degrees above zero and a wind chill below, so out came the thermals and full finger gloves. It was extremely cold setting off and instead of the flat roads of Southend I headed towards Hangingfield and a more challenging hilly ride, I kept warm and was enjoying the ride when I felt the first few flakes of snow, Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, snow was not on the menu for today's ride and before long I felt like a member of the SS Enterprise hitting warp speed, but instead of stars it was snow flying past and into my face. With the snow now turning to rain I was on the homeward stretch and travelling well through the lanes, up ahead there were a group of mallard ducks meandering across the road without a care in the world. I got closer and closer before they noticed my approach and then with a cacophony of quacks and flapping of wings they all took off just in time to clear me as I in turn flew past. Lets hope next week and the months ahead have a more settled outlook, "Roll on Paris".