Expectancy is central to all of our lives - from waiting for our children to be born, to waiting for buses, it is ever present.
In the case of myself and my riding buddies, expectancy is often also about the build up to the weekly Tuesday night ride. There is always an excited exchange of text messages, emails and phone calls leading up to the night in question, only slowing down at the agreed cut off point at which it is acceptable for one or more of us to bail on the arrangement.
But in life there are also givens. From the cold fact that this mortal coil always draws to an end, to the fact that our nation's buses invariably hunt in packs. But last night was the first time that the Tuesday night ride had ended with cancellation based on a given. The snow and sleet have been so soul destroying, compounded by the most chilling of temperatures, that none of us needed to exchange texts, emails or phone calls. Quite simply, cancellation needed no exchange of words.
So, what to do instead? A trip to the gym in this weather seemed treacherous incarnate...or, at least, the weather was a suitable excuse for not venturing outside, once home. So, I ended up at the laptop looking at bikes over the internet, rather than looking over them out on the trail. A bottle of wine seemed a suitable accompaniment, and my stomach is also full of hot food much earlier than usual for a Tuesday night.
In between the bike searches, I'm playing my regular 'Google your mates' names game.' Rather fittingly, as I wait with a large glass of wine in hand for the latest bike photo to upload, my Google search comes up with a cracker – our very own editor, Matt Skinner, has a namesake who is a wine critic! I wonder if said critic likes bicycles, too!
Here's raising a glass to you all!