B Group July 28th

Lovely morning, good forecast. I struggled a bit with which way to go, it seems that from Dorking one has to retrace one’s steps if one goes south; east or west means slogging up the north downs. So we went back up the road to Leatherhead and then turned left. “We” being Bob, Christine, Eddie, Godfrey, Harold, Ian, Les, Liz, Mick, Pat, Ray, Robin, Stephanie and my good self. Through the suburbs and then Cock Lane took us to a narrow path with shoulder-height stinging nettles. Then off-road across Great Bookham Common. The path wasn’t too bad and it was nice to be traffic-free. Then via Downside, Effingham Junction, Ockham and the airfield to the A3. Bob abandoned us at the airfield, he was heart-broken that we weren’t going to a Wetherspoon pub. (Does he have shares in them?) A few hundred yards along the A3 and then Wisley and The Anchor at Pyrford Lock. Mick and Ray disappeared at this point, Ray saying it was too crowded. In fact it was OK, we were served quite quickly and had a pleasant table by the canal and in the shade. We lost two and gained one, John G turned up having had to meet his long-lost girlfriend from Australia in the morning. Les said we had had too much tarmac so PLEASE could we go up the canal towpath, which we did. All the way to Weybridge, only about 5 miles but it took some time at about 8 mph. Parts of the towpath were quite sandy, the sort of sand that stops one almost instantly. Two people failed to cope and fell off into holly bushes. I feel it would be unkind to name them but it wasn’t Punch or Redbreast. While waiting for Harold to mend his saddle on his nice new bike Stephanie entertained us with the saga of her dropped-in-the-canal handbag which she retrieved a week later with the help on a mega-magnet. At Weybridge there was a parting, some went on the road, some on the Thames towpath. The bumps proved too much for John G’s nice new bike which fell to pieces. Seven of us went on to The Weir and had a quiet cup of tea by the river. We had a nice chat, the most remarkable thing that emerged was that Christine plays poker for high stakes every Friday.

Bernard