Mince pies at Gordon's

As Christmas is approaching, Gordon kindly volunteered to lead a ride to his house where he would treat us to refreshments. There were five people waiting for me at Horsham Pavilions - Gordon, Jacqui, Norman, Val and Sandra.  This was flagged as an easy ride, but that rating was based on the short mileage and not on a lack of hills. The route chosen involved Hammerpond Lane and, as any fool knows, it does have a couple of hills I'm afraid! There wasn't too much moaning from the assembled crew and everyone managed the hills, each in their own way, and we were soon at Slaugham. Here we took the Bridleway, north out of the village and up to Handcross. On the way we had to pull up and stand to one side as a tractor came down the track carrying a twenty foot Christmas Tree. We also pumped a bit of air into Jacqui's decidedly flat looking rear tyre.

Once in Handcross, Gordon went on ahead to get the heating on at his house, leaving me to lead everyone else in his wake.  I thought we could take the short detour over the two bridges crossing the A23 but having crossed the first bridge and continued west for another half mile I realised I'd got it wrong and had in fact only crossed the second bridge and we would have to turn around (or end up back at the bridleway we'd left two miles away!).  At this point we noticed that Jacqui's rear tyre was completely flat and we couldn't get it reinflated so changed it instead - thanks to Val for providing a spare. By this time Gordon was wondering where we were and phoned me, I let him know and assured him we'd only be about ten minutes.

Sure enough, ten minutes later we pulled up at Gordon's and stepped inside to be greeted by a roaring fire and a table full of mince pies, cakes and other delights. We all sat around eating, drinking and chatting. Topics included the number of words that a dog is capable of understanding. Some of us thought it was somewhere around ten, others thought it must be many more than that. Later on someone looked it up on t'interweb thingy and came up with a figure of over a thousand!

Eventually it was time to head back. Norman was volunteer leader for those going back to Horsham and he decided to go down Grouse Road and then Hammerpond Road back to Horsham - I understand he almost had a rebellion on the way back (eh, ladies?).

Many, many thanks to Gordon and Jacqui for hosting us - it made for a very enjoyable day.