Left my nice warm home at about 11.30am yesterday and met up with Martin and Gazza in Foots Cray. Still freezing cold from the long ride down, I rode to the pen with them to meet up with MG and Tom Tom who had driven up specially in a nice warm, dry cage to deliver some papers for me to deliver to Nigel.
I am still wondering exactly how it was that someone could leave the house for a very specific purpose, and yet arrive at their destination without the documents they had specifically set out to deliver.
So another cold ride down to Medway ensued, with MG and Tom Tom following up in the comfort of their cage. Two cups of warming tea and a couple of phone calls later, a partially thawed BE set off to deliver the forgotten papers to Nigel in Richmond.
By now the sun had set and the temperature started to plummet. I finally arrived (after a painfully slow ride round most of the South Circular Road that was packed with Christmas shopping traffic) at Nigel's at about 6.15pm where I barely had time to have a pee before having to set off home so I could be there in time to take Mrs Eagle out for the evening as promised.
And then it started to rain.
And it wasn't your ordinary rain that eventually works its way through your gloves and waterproofs, that makes riding a miserable experience. Oh no. This was the icy, stinging type of rain that makes riding treacherous and has the ability to spitefully drill its freezing spikes right to the marrow of your bones.
And I had to endure this for the best part of an hour doing 60 to 70mph on the M25 as I rode from Nigel's house to my own in Enfield only to find there had been an accident just before the junction where I wanted to leave the motorway. To avoid the traffic I was forced to leave the motorway one junction early, which forced me onto some very dark, slippery country lanes where I could barely see where I was going due to spray from vehicles and the continuing spiteful rain.
When I got in it was a quick change into dry clothes and I hadn't stopped shivering before I was whisked away to our dinner date with friends. After about two hours of arriving at our friend's, I had finally thawed out when my nose started to run. And it hasn't stopped since.
So it's now late Sunday afternoon and I'm laying in bed typing this, feeling very sorry for myself and getting very little sympathy from Mrs Eagle.
I'm not bitter though MG. As Wastemonster know only too well, I'm not the type to hold a grudge.