mad dogs and englishmen

In the Philippines
They have lovely screens
To protect you from the glare
In the Malay States
There are hats like plates
Which the Britishers won't wear
At twelve noon the natives swoon and no further work is done
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun

Oh, sweet Jesu, but it turned out to be as hot as predicted today. Tom H invited a few of his Insane Bike Posse (the cast of which shares most members with Laura OLPH's Hill Slugs) on a ride with an early start and not TOO many hills, hoping to be back before the mercury completely burst out of the glass tube in the heat of the afternoon.

Despite the heat, several of us rode bikes to the start (as did I; it's less than 7.5 miles from my house). Jack H warned us to "drink twice as much as usual", which 1) is completely contradictory to the advice I used to get about not drinking and going to the dratted meetings, and 2) was exactly the right advice for the day.

Prettiness along the way:

Laura was getting a picture of a vulture (I think) on the cross atop a steeple on a church off to your left in the photo above. I tried, but the picture didn't come out for me.

It was a great ride for me; kind of a rolling therapy group for much of the way. Cheaper than inpatient treatment, it was, and with fewer side effects than most medications. It takes riding with the same people over and over to get some of these benefits.


Seven of us started, but one left before the stop, another at the stop, and Very Truly Yours, Plain Jim, when I finally recognized where I was, rolled off to cut seven-or-so miles off what turned out to be a 57-mile trip for me. As Falstaff, never an Iron Man contender, said in Henry IV Part I: "The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life." Well, he WAS alive at the end of all the plays, wasn't he?