Sunday 21 December 2008. Ride to the White Horse, Sutton

Richard led this 36 mile ride from Chichester Cross with Avryl, Keith, Jeff, bell-ringing Chris and Linda for starters.
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I thought I knew Chichester's back roads well, but not as well as Richard, for he took us from East Street up Little London, through the residential roads north of St Pancras and the Swanfield Drive estate and past the sculptures in front of Homebase. The new twist came when we entered the car park of the Harvester Pub, picked up a signed (astonishingly) cycle track leading into the car park at the back of the Chichester Park Hotel, taking by surprise an unclothed male hotel resident flinging open his curtains and finally emerging onto Madgwick Lane in front of said hotel.

After all this the onward route to the White Horse was the usual - Pilleygreen, Duncton Hill and Barlavington.
At the pub Colin, Liz and Alan and then Gill turned up, Gill having had to mend a couple of punctures before setting out. Extra people turned out useful as Keith had come armed with the Mail's jumbo Christmas crossword.

After lunch Liz and Alan made their way back to Wiggonholt from whence they came; Chris, Jeff, Keith and Colin went their own ways, while the remaining four of us turned left from the pub past Burton Mill Pond, across the A285 via Graffham and Heyshott to Cocking for tea.

Calamity. The closed sign was up. But fortunately after a bit of gesticulating through the windows the proprietor welcomed us in saying that they'd had a private lunch with neighbours, but since they'd finished we were very welcome to have tea, which we did - with cakes.

In passing, the locals said that the BLUEBELL INN in Cocking is CLOSED FOR GOOD. Failing business is to blame and they didn't know what was going to happen to the pub or the site.

Our foursome disintegrated after tea. Richard set off early to get home, Avryl turned left at Singleton and Gill took the Centurion Way, while Linda carried on down the main road.

Happy Christmas to everyone.

Linda