Friday Night and I am "Nobby No Mates"

Friday night everyone goes out and like everyone else I had plans. Unfortunately at the last minute those plans were thwarted so I was “Home Alone”. The best offer I got was to babysit three children with Big G who was doing a friend a favour and having the children for 24 hours. I settled for washing my hair; catching up on the ironing and watching TV – Dorothy Domestic me, make someone a good wife.

Saturday I was supposed to be riding with M, however he told me during Friday that he had childcare problems (I suggested that Graham wouldn’t notice one more but M was of the opinion that his partner would not stand for that). As Big G was still babysitting all day Saturday and Turbo P was in the Lake District on matrimonial duty it was looking like I was going to be riding alone.

Riding alone is not something I like as in the event of an accident there is no one to look out for you. In addition it is boring riding alone.

My brother rang me and suggested that I be in St Albans at 7:30 AM (St Albans is an hours drive from home) for a ride from St Albans to Leicester to visit his mother in law. I was not averse to this despite the early start as I wanted to ride and my daughter is at university in Leicester and it might give me a chance to meet up with her.

In preparation for the early start I dismantled my bike and loaded it into the car.

No sooner had I finished the loading than I got a text from M to say the childcare situation had been resolved and he was riding – that gave me a problem – who do I let down.

My wife and son are away this week. However, my wife had left me with a list o tasks to accomplish before she returned. Some of those tasks could only be accomplished on Saturday and riding to Leicester would prevent me from ticking those tasks off.

I rang my brother to give him the bad news, he was out and I spoke to his wife and gave her the message. I felt bad as I did not want him to have an accident riding alone, especially as he was starting so early and it was going to be a cold night leaving ice on the roads, and I told his wife that. Unfortunately for him his wife thought about this and banned him from riding alone Saturday so he did not get out.

I did also leave the message that he could join us in Surrey.

I rang M and agreed on a run to Bury Hill (on the A29 Bognor Road just before Arundel) starting at 10:00 AM. The 10:00 start would give me time to do the Saturday items on the list left by my wife.

I then had to unpack my bike from the car and get it built ready for the morning.