Deserted!

Every Fathers' Day, from apparently 1976, the British Heart Foundation's London to Brighton bike ride has passed our house. Around 34 years ago, when I worked in Watford, I signed up do it with a group from my office but I chickened out my bike really wasn't up to it. It never crossed my mind, way back then, that one day I'd be living on the route!

We've only been here for the last 18 years of it but we love the occasion. There are loads of similar events all throughout the year, including for vintage cars, steam engines, motorbikes and even overnight ones, but this is easily the biggest. We're right by a marshall point and housebound for most of the day but usually use the time to cut the hedges and have a barbeque, so it's no problem for us. When the kids were little, we used to sit them on the drive and they loved seeing all the 30,000+ bikes whizzing past, the silly costumes and hearing the riders dinging their bells at them. It's quite an event for our village, too, with a rest stop, bike repair & first aid tents and refreshments stall outside the village hall on the main road and I used to love helping out there.

Needless to say, like last year, this year's event has been cancelled again but I have put in links below to some highlights from my previous blip journal:

19th June 2011

17th June 2012  (There's some extra Blipfolio shots here, too)

16th June 2013

And a different event on the 16th September 2012... oooh, er!

In other news, my newly-18-year-old daughter got her first jab this morning!

Happy Fathers' Day!