A weekend in this weather

It is supposed to be summer, and I'm sure that everyone has heard from people they know over here how disappointing the weather has been.  In fact, today, the news reported massive floods in Ireland ( I know, we're not in Ireland, but you know).  Martin and I are determined to have a summer however.  As you've read in earlier blogs, we are both the proud owners of a set of second hand bikes.  I have been scooting down to the supermarket daily on mine, and until this week, Martin has been biking to work.  Though it is about twenty minutes too far, so he's canned that idea. 
On Saturday, we bustled down to the train station with our pride and joys.  We were off to Margaret and Daniel's in Guildford to catch the All Blacks playing South Africa on their telly.  Instead of them picking us up, we thought we'd cycle.  The trains here are very open to bikes being on board.  They even have special stands and parking spaces for them on the carriages.  So that was fun.  We arrived a bit breathless, as we'd sped there in time for kick off.  It was well worth it too.  What a fantastic game we played!  Wahoo!
On Sunday Martin and I headed to a new church in Tolworth.  This was made possible by our new found modes of transport.  We cycled to mass, downhill in eight minutes.  Though we did ride right by it, therefore circling around for awhile before I asked a cute little lady and her dog where the Catholic church was.  I was a little concerned she might shun me, being Sunday morning and Church of England being the national religion etc.  But she pointed us back where we came and we locked up our bikes and entered another traditional English church.  We found ourselves sitting in the creche.  What I mean is, that over here, all of the parents with young children seem to have established places they sit together in the church.  I guess it gives you a more understanding group of people if your child starts blasting out in the homily.  We had a cute little blondie in front of us and a couple of twin boys nearby that provided light entertainment.  We had seen these boys walking with their Bob the Builder hats on.  I knew they'd be heading to mass.  Very cute.   Of course, Martin and I score the mass unofficially on things such as, atmosphere, music, priest's homily etc to decide if we'll settle.  We decided it was a great family place to be.  The music group had good potential, needing a bit of volume.  So I thought I'd volunteer to join them. They seemed pleased and now I have an excuse to buy a guitar!  Wahoo!  Martin might be roped in at some point too. 
After mass we packed up the homemade pizza from the night before and saddled our bikes again.  We rode to Kingston-Upon-Thames (twot twot) and found a grassy spot to picnic amongst the fishermen.  The fishermen are groups of men or teenage boys with doting girlfriends attached,  who have pitched a tent for the day, cracked open a couple or more beers and set their fishing rods up on electronic stands.   These stands appeared to beep and make all sorts of noises, depending on the needs of the rod.  I thought this hilarious to be honest.  'Bait me!  Check me!  I've caught one!'  All they then had to do was respond and crack another beer -- it seemed.
Because the weather was a bit dodgy (as it is) we decided to go to a matinee movie.  We saw Kung Fu panda.  If someone could please explain to me why the panda's father was goose, that would be great.  I waited the whole movie to hear that the panda was adopted or something, but it never came up.  Never.  We just had to accept it.  Interesting.  All in all, a good movie with some decent laughs.  A bit of an easy ending.  And that's all I'll say about that.
Home again, home again jiggidy jig.  We found a musical instrument and stuff store on the way home but it was closed.  I'll have to go back and splore this week sometime.  What a shame.  So that's what you do in London when the weather is temperamental.  A picnic on plastic bags and a movie.  Can't go wrong really.  Yay for bikes.