3 Oct - Season of Mists

I'm not much of a Keats fan. For all that romantic guff about "moss'd cottage-trees" it seems that he lived fast and died young - in Rome of TB aged just 25.

Still, it might put you in the mood for a ride this Sunday starting 9am prompt in Hebden Bridge. Follow the trail of middle-aged blokes in unsuitable shades of lycra to find the start on Salem Street and go to Chris Crossland's site for full details.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.