A hard rain is gonna fall..

...or rather a hard rain IS falling. There's a blustery wind too and it hasn't let-up for some time. By now, of course, there would have been 'abort' texts flying between mine and Andy's mobile phones, but today it's irrelevant as we're not planning on a ride. Our next outing will be Boxing Day, when hopefully the weather will have picked up, ie no rain.

I'm in my usual place, sitting in the conservatory listening to the rain hitting the flat roof above me and looking out on the bare trees swaying to and fro in the wind. It wouldn't be pleasant on a bike today and you can bet that any cyclist out there will be wearing wet and shiny trousers. Fortunately, it's not cold.

Instead of going out, I've been scrolling back through old posts and I've realised how stagnated we've become. By that I mean we're no longer pushing the boundaries, heading out for Merstham (the long way) via the infamous Enterdent or heading down Jackass Lane to Tandridge via off-road routes. This, of course, is because of time constraints, but in the new year we ought to be heading for these places again and, indeed, trying my new route to Redhill (which avoids the A23).

Also available in bright red.

I get the impression that the rain will continue for most of the day and at some stage I've got to drive to the garage to put air into the offside front tyre of our Picanto. Yes, I'm the (ahem) proud owner of a Kia Picanto, which, to be fair, is alright for driving around town. The only problem is that it looks like Postman Pat's car – it's bright red. All we need is a black and white cat and I've seen one in Robert Dyas, but couldn't be bothered to spend the money.

If you recall (although I might not have written about it) my own black BMW was written off when some complete idiot whammed into the back of it back in September time. We went without a car for about a month or two and spent our weekends on buses travelling to car showrooms to look at cars, none of which really appealed: they were either too expensive for what they were or simply not right for us – or both.

We looked at a Ford Focus, an old Mercedes, a Vauxhall Vectra and many others until we decided on the safe bet, the Picanto. The only problem with it is that it's not the sort of car to travel long distances. Or rather it will go the distance but not at any great speed and certainly not in comfort, like the old Beamer. Still, it's a car and for the moment it'll have to do. The key thing is that it gets my daughter to school, which was always the main consideration.

For a minute I thought the rain had stopped. It hasn't.