Tour de France does Essex

The Tour de France came to Essex today and the residents of Loughton & Buckhurst Hill lined the road in the forest and the last stretch of the Epping New Road before crossing into the London Borough of Redbridge.

We arrived early with chairs & blankets, packed lunches & sun glasses. We enjoyed free tea & coffee served with chocolate biscuits at St John's church and we resisted the French man trying to flog us umbrellas for £10. As one spectator said "you can't sell us a brolley, were English, we already own at least one each". Some of us (not me) had even brought one with us, which was handy when the down pour came.

We waited & waited, the youngest amongst us got bored and were ready to go home, when in the distance, up the Epping Nee Road we got sight of the two leading cyclists.

Wow how fast they whizzed past. It was all over in about 2 minutes but it was worth every minute (or more accurately hour) of the wait to see the Tour de France in Gods own country. (I know Yorkshire try to claim they are Gods own country but they are wrong, sorry)

We made it home just in time to have a cuppa and watch the last 20 minutes on the TV. Vive le Tour de France