We are now in June. Nearly half way through 2012 - so how has the biking year gone so far? Well, not to put too fine a point on it.....it's been crap. Apart from a couple of mini bimbles round mid Surrey and a couple of long routes home at the end of the day, all this year has consisted of so far is the commute to and from work.The reason? Well, work has got in the way a lot and then there's The Great British Weather.
Coming out of a relatively mild winter (only one major snow fall that I can recall - luckily we don't live "oop north"), I'm sure many of us had high hopes for spring and summer, but it's largely been a washout....quite literally. After a freezing cold February, things started to look up. Apparently March was lovely. I say apparently because we chose the best and warmest March for a long time to go on holiday to South Africa, so missed it all. But never mind, things looked good for April. Or not.... April 2012 actually turned out to be the coldest since 1989, the dullest since 1998 and the wettest since 2000. Remarkably, there have been only three wetter Aprils in 285 years of records in England and Wales!
May had to be better, didn't it? Well yes, but only marginally. It was bloody cold through the first half of the month, and unusually dull and gloomy in the South East. Not at all what we've come to expect in recent years. Very disappointing. And so to June.
As I write this, I look out of the window and it's raining. This has been the story of the month so far - there has been widespread flooding across the country (particularly in the South East) and for the first time in over 100 years the showpiece Senior's race at the Isle of Man TTs was cancelled because the roads were so dangerous (and those riders are nutters, with no regard for personal safety!).And it's about to get even worse. The short range forecast is for three month's worth of rain to fall over the next three days! Lovely.
So if no biking, what else has happened? Not much to be perfectly honest. Fulham finished the season strongly and ended up in 9th place in the league. The Jubilee celebrations took place and, typically, it rained!
Thankfully, our street party happened on the Saturday - the one day on that weekend not affected by the weather. The sun even made an appearance during the afternoon! Some photos of our day can be found HERE. And now we're into Euro 2012. By all accounts it's 30-odd degrees in Poland and the Ukraine (we are currently at 15 degrees in London) and it's been a good tournament so far.
For the first time in a very long time, I'm actually enthusiastic about England and our chances of winning something. Maybe not this particular tournament but I think we have it in us to do well over the next few years.
The reason? Well, we have some good young players coming through but it's largely due to the new management team. Roy Hodgson and Ray Lewington were the principal figures in Fulham's storming run to the Europa League Final in 2010 and we as supporters hold them both in extremely high regard. Add the impressive Gary Neville into the mix on the coaching staff and we have a team that hopefully everyone can get behind. Much more so than was the case with the distant and wasteful Capello.
A highly creditable draw with 3rd favourites France opened our tournament and tonight we play Sweden - the land of ABBA and flat pack furniture. We haven't beaten Sweden at a major championship since Joan Collins was a virgin but I'm quietly confident we can do the business tonight - and then we see where it takes us.I just wish they could send some of their weather our way....
