Thursday, May 30

Thursday started out looking promising, but by the time we were loading up the bikes, the rain started. We followed the A40 out of Brecon, got only a little lost, and found Raglan Castle right off the A40 a little bit later. Raglan opened at 9:30 but the nice lady let us in early at 9:15, after she finished feeding the Raglan cat. After we paid our admission, Brad and Mo arrived. Brad had told us about Raglan the night before which was what put us on to it in the first place. We tromped around Raglan for about half an hour, including time spent petting the Raglan cat (and feeding it a tuna sandwich left (wrapped) by a tourist at the top of the main tower) and then the rain started again, so we split. Brad and Mo hung around another hour or so.

Kate and I then had a mostly rainy ride down the A40 (including riding through downtown Cheltenham because we didn't understand that "(A40)" meant "the A40 bypass around Cheltenham" to Oxford, where the A40 becomes the M40 motorway. Finally the rain let up near the end of the ride as we exited the motorway for the B467 (or somesuch) to Ruislip. We found HGB motors with only one wrong turn (and met Charlie on the way in from the motorway) and managed to unpack our stuff from the bikes and cram 6 of us (Bob, Margie, Mike, Charlie, and Kate and I) *and* our stuff into an 8 passenger station wagon used as a cab for the ride to the Christopher Hotel in Eaton.

In Eaton, after getting out of our riding gear (for the last time) we popped down to the hotel's pub for a pub lunch, and then went for a walk in Eaton - we walked up to Windsor Castle but didn't pay to go inside (quite dear at £11.50 each) did some window shopping and a little real shopping (magazines and a Union Jack flag) and then returned to the hotel to shower and do some packing before dinner.

The last dinner of the trip was as good as usual, plus Brenda handed out gag gifts or small trinkets to everyone, and then finally hugs and handshakes all around as we split up for good.

Tomorrow the cab arrives at 7:45AM to take us to Heathrow for the flight home.