We had 16 participants – 9 joined at Green Bridge, 5 joined at Springfield Marina, and Gerry who joined us at Enfield.  1 person phoned at 10am to say he would be arriving at Green Bridge in about 10 min and could we please wait for him.  I told him we had left Green bridge at 9am, not 10am.  He was disappointed, but said he would pay more attention to the group listings in future, and hoped to join us next year.  The weather was lovely & the sun even shone for a while.

We made very good time up the Lea Valley as we had a tail wind the whole way.  All the closures encountered on the last Cream Tea ride had been removed, so we had a clear run all the way to Enfield.  Gerry phoned just passed Ponders End to say she was leaving Springfield marina and would catch us up.   We waited at Enfield, but I was concerned about timing as we had some slow cyclists in the group.  Nick volunteered to wait for Gerry and catch us up, while I lead everyone on.  Nick and Gerry caught us up at Daws Hill and we all went on to Chingford for lunch.  Some of us picnicked on the grass near the Golf club, while others went to the Golf club for lunch – apparently the food was very good.

We left promptly at 1pm and made very good time through the forest – we met 2 horses which were obviously used to cyclists as they didn’t even twitch as we cycled very slowly passed them.  We arrived at Upshire at 13:50 (I had been asked to be there closer to 14:00 than 14:30, so were rather early)  We were met by a flustered helper who informed us we were very early, I introduced our group and apologised for being so early, and we offered to helped put out the chairs. 

Once we were told the teas were ready and we could come in, everyone made their way into a veritable Aladdin’s cave of cakes, biscuits, cookies and assorted delights.  There was a group of hikers and another bike group there too.  A number of people bought extra to take home for family and friends.  One of the group left us there to make her own way home.

We left just after 15:30 and made our way down to Waltham Cross to drop one of the group off to catch the train home.  The rest of us made our way to the Lea valley in a head wind to Springfield marina, where we lost a couple more cyclists.  We then cycled down to Hackney and Gerry suggested a short cut through Hackney, instead of continuing down the canal.  We all agreed and followed Gerry through lanes and parks.  We had 1 puncture at this point – fortunately the victim lived quite close by and said she would just walk the rest of the way home.  The rest of us made our way down Cannon Street Road and onto Cable street to head over Tower Bridge.