It was a sign. We didn’t listen. We would probably do it again anyway. This week’s night ride (C U next Tuesday, that’s another story) was prefaced by ‘The Storm of 21’. 2 inches (5 cm for the euros) of hail had landed on the driveway in about 20 minutes. Not normal. The storm was moving North, right to where we were riding. Shall we? Shan’t we?? We did. Magically it had already passed through when we arrived. As we approached the top of the first decent, we had a black cat moment. Four ducks crossed our path, two couples, very casually, sauntering. In hindsight I think the last one may have cocked his head and raised an eyebrow, but we missed that. After happily sessioning a selection of extremely fine Jank surround by lightning bolts and claps of thunder we sensed the storm was coming back to wish us goodnight. Although we high tailed, we were caught short of the cars. My lasting memory will be stood on the hill sheltering under the boot lid trying to get changed, feet on flooded tarmac wondering how the hell I was gonna do this. I should have packed a life jacket and listened to the ducks.