Thirteen of us assembled at Paddock Wood Station with darkening clouds slowly making their way towards us and, realising it was not a case of if it would rain but when, we set off on our journey out towards Yalding.

There was a few new faces on the ride so people started to introduce themselves to each other along the route as is the norm with our friendly group.

Everything was going along fine until about a mile from Headcorn aerodrome we suffered the first of two punctures to occur on the today’s ride.

As always, folks rallied around to help and we were on our way again before too long just as the heavens opened up on top of us.

We stopped for refreshments at the aerodrome but as there was no parachuting going on because of the conditions we quickly set off again in the heavy rain towards our lunch stop at Frittenden.

Having learnt my lesson from a previous ride when I turned up at a pub with a big group unannounced I had phoned the Bell and Jorrocks pub earlier and a cold and bedraggled group were given a warm welcome, a reserved table and good food to set us back up for the afternoon ride back to Paddock wood.

As we sat eating and drinking  through the pub window we could see what was the heaviest rain of the day lashing down so we had a bit of a result there. Preparing to set off from the pub our second puncture of the day was discovered but if you have to have one then undercover in a pub seems a good place.

For the last twenty miles of  the ride the rain eased off and then stopped with the sun making an appearance with about ten miles to go.

Thanks to everyone for coming out and, considering the conditions, the banter and the laughs on the ride was brilliant

Also a big thank you to Andrew Fergar who got things organised at Bromley and then acted as back marker for me.