3 November. The Birthday Biker

The Pig and Abbot at Abington Pigotts; what a tongue twister! But that was the meeting place for our Thursday morning outing; landlady Pat kindly opening the Pig at 9am, welcoming us with coffee and taking our orders for lunch.

What’s more, it was Vernon’s birthday and rumour had it that he’d be buying the beer, which probably accounted for the good turn out, 10 Windmillers in all: the birthday boy himself plus Maurice, Andrew, John B, Chris, Rick, Sandra, Rod, Ken and Brian.

Maurice had planned – and was going to lead us around – a 30 mile circuit of the lanes north west of Royston. As usual – and just in case any of us went astray – he distributed maps with the route clearly marked. He even left a paper trail of £5 notes*.  What could possibly go wrong?

But leading the Windmillers is a bit like herding cats and, before long, our gang was scattered across the Beds / Herts border country. Most notable was Vernon, who did an unplanned visit to Gamlingay and Rod, who had to be chased down and turned around. “I may have been going the wrong way but I wasn’t lost,” he protested.

Eventually, everyone was rounded up and all 10 made it back to the Pig in time for lunch. We were particularly pleased to be joined by John T and Kell. They’d heard Vernon was buying.

*Maurice did indeed lose a fiver out of his back pocket but, miraculously, this was recovered and returned to its rightful owner by Andrew.

Brian