Sunday nights lamb roast was to die for. It had all the trimmings. Best meal we had eaten in ages. No joke! It was so good, we had to drink many wines to celebrate. Ugh, two big nights in a row, I don't manage that well.
Brad and I enjoying the new bar area of the open plan kitchen. Cheers.
An awesome feast, Sunday Roast Lamb to die for.
Therefore, on Monday morning, when it was time to get the van back to Apex, I begged Will to let me stay behind and pay bills instead. Phew, got out of that one. Tired is an understatement. So Will got the van back and rode his bike home with no worries, and we helped Sue with a phew housey things before heading into the High street for a bit of emergency clothes shopping. We all arrived home in time to chuck a few drinks in the cooler bag and walk down to the Anglers to join Sue's friends on their boat. Perfect day for it, a gorgeous 30C, but all the poms were dying.
Sue heading off to get her hair done on Vespy, her 125 Vesper. Cool!
We sat on the boat, moored up, until we convinced Brian (he is new to this boat, and it is big, and a lot more complicated than our little run about) to take us up the river for a cruise. We didn't go far, and then rafter up with another boat for a while. It was a beautiful night, but looked like the middle of the bloody day. The sun just will not go down.
Putting up the Thames on Two Rebels. What a great evening!
Narrow boat having a cruise around in the great weather.
After many beverages (not me, two nights is plenty for me), we decided we'd better get back before dark, as Brian wasn't confident to park it in the dark. So we set off around a little island, and we came to a straight along the river, and there were no other boats, and Brian had had a few, so we all held on for dear life and he floored it. BAM!! Straight to 30 knots, and the little naughty boy had emerged. At our loud requests of slow down, we weren't keen on riding the bank at that speed, he promptly cut the throttle. This was so sudden, that Denise (Brian's wife), who was sitting on the rear bench, was thrown forward, fully face planting in the cheese platter, but champion that she is, did not spill a drop of wine. Oh my god, it was the funniest thing, and once we knew she was ok, we all just about wet our pants laughing, including Denise. I'm still laughing. Stupid and dangerous, but hell funny. We made it back to the Anglers safely, then we made it home. Another big, late night.
At The Kings Head, checking out this cool old pub.
Will and Sue with Brian, our host for the night.
Fun, crazy night on the river Thames.
Tuesday, we were woken early by the usual Polish builders, and another freaking loud, annoying guy on his blower vac. After trying to put up with the noise for a couple of hours, we lost the plot and decided to head into town for brekkie. As we were leaving through the back gate, we found the blower vac guy, who was actually using the stupid machine to blow the leaves off the grass....seriously, who does that? Bonkers, that is what that is.
The rest of that day we just chilled out in the backyard, reading, blogging and enjoying the gorgeous 30C day. We did take a walk along the Thames and had an ice cream, and watched all the crazy Poms sunning themselves on the grass, shirts off. We had hats, sunscreen and kept to the shady areas...lol.
Wednesday, we decided we would need to go and try and get some clip in shoes for our new pedals. We'd done some research on the net, and found Evan's Cycles, in Kingston. It was only a 17km ride from Oud Manor, and we found it pretty easily. Ben helped us with lots of good info on the types of shoes, what they were good for etc. We managed to find a pair each, and on Ben's suggestion, we rode to Richmond park (like Bushy Park, but bigger), to get used to clipping in and out on the grassy areas so when we fall, and we will according to everybody, we won't get hurt.
What a beautiful, quiet morning.... No movement at the locks yet.
We found a safe spot, put on our shoes (one at a time only), and tried to clip in. It wasn't as easy as it looks. Will made some adjustments to the springs on the pedals, then we had another go. In like flynn, and just twist outward to unclip. Got it! So a few laps with one, clipping in and out, then we both put the other shoes on. This was where we got a bit nervous, imagining ourselves toppling over onto the ground clipped in, we got to it. Slowly we rode around, clipping in, unclipping and somehow, we didn't fall over. Confident that we could ride home in our clipped in shoes, we headed off. Davao GPS decided that we needed a new route and directed us along the roads. We went through the centre of Kingston, where markets were on, and then off down some back roads.
Getting ready to become real cycle geeks.
Man this is not as bad as I was expecting...pretty cool, really.
How you going Will? Too easy, let's roll!
Everything was pretty quiet, by London standards, probably because it was the hottest July day on record with a high temp of 36.7C. So we had a pretty good ride home up to Claygate. We came to an intersection, where we had to turn right. I unclipped lefty, ready to stop, and Will was just ahead looking left, and went through, I started to head right too, but just saw the mini at the last minute. Whacked on the breaks, stopped in plenty of time, but I was heading right, but only had my left foot unclipped, so toppled over on my right side. It was like slow motion, I was thinking - no time to unclip the right foot, how much will this hurt? Well, quite a bit actually! But no major damage, and lined up behind me at the intersection was a whole bunch of cars, just watching me look like a total beginner......which I was! Once down, it was easy and quick to unclip, so I jumped up and got on the bike and got going. My right palm was really sore, my left calf, and worst of all, my pride was in tatters. The rest of the way home, was pleasant, and hassle free, and at every potential stop, both feet were unclipped. Lesson learned.
We rode past Sandown Park Track, and through Esher, which is a very posh and pretty area, then Hersham and Weybridge. Then we new where we were and happily rode through the High street to home.
After our ride, we cooled off in the shade with a few ice cold drinks, watching the Polish guys sweating and swearing in Polish. It was hot in anyone's world, I even considered a swim, but had a shower instead. We had a nice quiet afternoon relaxing in the shade and enjoying the breeze. Tomorrow we are up at the crack of dawn to head to Gatwick for our flight to Denmark. Another mini adventure.....Danish Dudes we're coming to ya!
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