4 July 2009 (Saturday) - Cycling To Warehorne

A cycle ride to Warehorne for a ploughman’s lunch. Over the last few weeks I’ve had no end of problems trying to publicise these little outings – emails seem to vanish into cyberspace, and my mobile sends texts to people’s landlines. I shall put up forthcoming events in the “Dates for the Diary” blog section to the right and hope that this is a good way of letting people know what I’m up to. If you don’t read my blog, could you let me know so’s I can tell you to look at it to find out what’s going on.

Up until a couple of months ago I would have confidently said that Warehorne is too far away to comfortably cycle. Today the journey there took less than an hour. If this cycling prowess continues, by the end of the summer a cycle ride to Rye and back should be on the cards.

The World’s Wonder in Warehorne is one of my current favourite pubs, if for no other reason than “Wonderbrew”. A beer that Goachers brew especially for the place. I say “especially” – there are other pubs for which Goachers brew special beers, and all these “one-off” beers taste suspiciously similar.

We arrived at the World’s Wonder, rearranged the tables and soon the non-cyclists were with us. Dinner was ordered – you can’t go wrong with a stilton ploughman’s. I’m getting just a tad predictable here. Whilst we ate, more cyclists arrived. And more. And more. All of them well into their sixties. One of them came over to us thinking we were part of their group. We got chatting - it turned out that the “Kent & Sussex Cycling Fellowship” had arranged to have a meeting there today. I must admit that some of those chaps on their bikes put me to shame.

It would have been quite pleasant to have sat in the beer garden all afternoon, but we got back on the bikes and set off back for home. ‘er indoors ^TM had a mishap with her chain, but that was easily fixed. Gear cables tend to stretch, and both our bikes could do with a service. After ten minutes of puffing up the road my phone rang. Brian had already got to the Kings Head in Shadoxhurst – should he get the beers in? A difficult decision, I’m sure my loyal readers will agree. Shepherd Neame mild and a selection of olives. Very nice. Batty & Tina then set off for home whilst Brian and I had a pint of Bishop’s Finger for afters. I’ve not seen Bishop’s Finger on a hand pump since the day of Jack in the Green back in May, and then it had run out.

We arrived home, puffed for a few minutes, then all piled into the Bat-Mobile to Lakeside. Batty had been admiring the small rack on my bike, and wanted to go to Decathlon to get one. If anyone is ever going to Decathlon, I’ll always go along for the ride. The clothing is so cheap there, and there’s not many places that do pink T shirts in my size.

This evening once I’d done the ironing I sat down to do the household accounts. Basically I see what’s gone out of the bank, and what’s appeared on my credit card. And then see if it agrees with what I think it should be. A time consuming job, but worth doing. It amazes me that there are people who don’t check these things. I once found that I was paying for a phone I’d long since cancelled, and got a substantial refund. And another time I found the leccie people had helped themselves to large amounts of my wonga without telling me.

Today I noticed when going through credit card receipts that a lot of shops are now itemising the cost of the goods separately from the cost of the VAT. Take for example this afternoon’s haul from Decathlon – I stumped up £49.70 on assorted t shirts, trousers and camping kettles. But Decathlon has taken the trouble to tell me that without VAT it would have cost £43.20. Well, that’s no surprise really. I have a degree in mathematics and could easily have worked it out for myself. I wonder why they are doing this. They aren’t alone – several shops are doing the same. Is someone somewhere making a political statement…..