Frodsham? Eureka! and Bangor-on-Dee

The forecast was for broken cloud, and they're not often wrong but today we got a serious wetting; and the temperature was only around 4 deg C but at least there was hardly any breeze.
Out at 8am to the C.O. start where two Smilers are ready to go and I'm told that one, who hadn't yet got his chuckle muscles going, would be smiling when we pick him up at 9am. Phil, Neil and I set off down the lanes, to make the distance up to around 15 miles, for Frodsham where we'll pick up Carl (Neil's son). It starts to rain as we start and it keeps going but we make the pace with 14.6 miles in as we pick up Carl. He's practising the sax but he doesn't yet know 'When Your Smiling' - a bad omission, must do better. Off again and aiming at 30 miles by 10:10am at the Eureka cafe. We keep the lead changing at make the cafe with 34 miles up. We have a chat with the Road Club lads but we can't join them to the Ice Cream Farm as we can't stretch the miles. It's a sign of the poor weather that the cafe still isn't clear when we leave at 10:45.
Now we're heading for Bangor, by a devious route, and by Holt the roads are drying and we can enjoy sucking a wheel. 67 miles up by the Buck (pub) in Bangor and large meals seem to be the order of the day - Phil considers a pudding. Carl, the virgin Smiler, receives high praise for the way in which he has fallen into our routine and pulled his weight - he can come again. And although he wasn't acknowledged, Neil did most of the ride organisation and most of the work.
Leaving the Buck, with threatening skies, we meet the Mold CTC group on their way to Errdigg and spend a few chatty minutes before pressing on for the last 33 miles. The rain soon hits again and doesn't stop. We do a detour to Beeston to make the miles and head for base, and it's wet. A last stop in Hargrave for carbs (a shelter), where we all have the same thing in mind - get a warm bath and then flop in front of the telly. Then the last bit through Guilden Sutton to return to the C.O. with 102 miles up at 15.0 mph. It's no use asking if the ride was enjoyable as people with this kind of mental disability have no credence with normal people.