Michael is my hero!

In all the heroic tales you read, there is a hero who saves a damsel in distress.

Well today I was that damsel in distress although I did not know it at the time and I was saved by Michael!

It was an absolutely wonderful day in every way. According to philosopher Chuck, happiness is when you have a good time with good food, good friends and good music. And we had it all plus I also had a bout extraordinary good luck.

I started my day riding from home at 6 am and the greatest achievement was riding all the way from home to Stony Hill without stopping once. Arrival time 7.10 am.

I was alone until on Long Lane, I was passed by Charles the 1st, Sheriff, Pat, Fatman and Chris (all members of the B team for the A team always rides out later than we do and catch us up along the way)  but they stopped to rest at Red Gal Ring while I slogged on.

At Stony Hill I saw Richard and Sharon who had (disgracefully) driven up instead of riding.

I remembered it was Elaine's (Perkins) birthday and called her to sing happy birthday.Then I sent Stanford to her home  nearby with an Ackee and saltfish breakfast which I bought at her regular haunt Countryside. She was absolutely overwhelmed saying it was the best thing that had  happened to her since Mutty died, so that really made me feel good.

When the rest of the B team arrived we headed off to Castleton where I was told we would wait for the A team.



 The ride was really good in the early morning before the sun got a chance to come out and beat the hell out of me. At Castleton we had delicious cray fish soup and members of the A team started to filter in.

When Michael arrived he immediately enquired if I had my car keys. I was a bit surprised at the question and since there was no doubt in my mind that it was in one of my pouches (one on my bicycle handle and the other on my person) I kind of dismissed the subject and found it quite funny when he said he had found a Chevrolet key on the road and when he stopped to pick it up, Orrel and Howie nearly crashed into him. 

As it turns out however, the joke was on me for had Chuck and Fatman not insisted that I check my pouch to make sure that I  really had my key, I would probably be outside right now with a grill man trying to saw off my grill so I could enter my house. For when I checked my both pouches, my key ring was nowhere to be found. (house and car key on the ring) When Micheal  asked Jordan to go the car to get the keys he had found and given her to keep, lo and behold they were mine. So you see why he is my hero for he saved me from having a distressful day!

I still can't figure out how my keys fell out though since both my pouches were zipped up when I checked and none had a hole. If I believed in duppy or obeah, I could put it down to one but with those out, I had to conclude that the Chinese are now making zippers that lock and unlock at will, for what else could have happened there? I have stopped trying to figure it out and have just accepted that today was really my very, very lucky day. And thanks to Ayatollah who made the arrangements and Charles the 1st who conceptualized the ride to Tapioca followed by a hike through the hills to Ugly river. To get there, we walked past Devon Pen all age school and a catholic church and ended up where there is a perfect swimming hole under the bridge.

Apart from the regular Fun and Thrills group, we had a number of 6th formers from St. Georges college who were at Tapioca on a retreat from Friday.  When they heard that among our group was Georges' Old Boy's President for Life Charles Williams  they were happy to spend time with the older folk and had a whale of a time too.

The comedy of the day was when Bernadette, seeing a visitor from New Zealand and some young fellows from Georges climb up to a big rock and jump down into the river, undertook the challenge. It took her a good 15 minutes of contemplation and encouragement from everyone shouting "jump" before she got the courage to do it! Then to make matters worse, after coming out of the water, she climbed back up to the rock to spend another 15 minutes to half hour trying to get  up the courage to  jump again!

We returned to our destination via the main road as the hill section though which we had hiked to get there was rather tedious.

As usual Maurice (RB)  led the march to ride back to Kingston and he was joined by Marcus, Chris and Johann and we never saw them until we got to Stony Hill . But then we did not leave till long after the others as we got some dominoes and Chuck and I took on Carolyn and Fatman with Chully and Stanford acting as fillers when anyone had to  take a bathroom break. It was not until we were nudged by Charles the 1st who had to transport some of the idlers that we got up from the table.

And to make it a truly wonderful day, my keys were safe in my pouch when I returned home.

Photographs supplied by Janel James and Charles Simpson)