Looking at the weather forecast the day before, I thought a train trip to Seymour followed by a raging north wind at my back, coming back to town would be the go. A bit of rain was predicted but I can cope with moderate rain – after all, it’s just water and we are mostly water and we perspire water.

Indeed, the theme that I had instilled into my mind prior to the ride was to pay tribute to that little-known Englishman who migrated to this little mid-Victorian town some years ago who, by his avant-garde fashion design vision, created something that has pleasurably exercised my optic nerve (and those of millions of males also), the inventor of the mini-skirt, Seymour Legge. I thought that, contemporaneously, I would also honour those other great inventors of a famous female garment, the Franco-German aristrocratic fashionistas, the co-inventors of the bra, le Duc de Brassière and Otto von Titslinger.

Well, all thoughts of such honour disappeared as the train ventured north. Initially, leaving Melbourne in quite warm weather, I thought I’d be overdressed and hot, but the train’s windows started showing sprinkles of rain but that was OK, the howling north wind was still blowing.

Well, blow me down, by the time we got to Seymour, there was rain such as Moses had never seen and he would have immediately started chopping the wood for his ark. I couldn’t do so and I couldn’t mate (or copulate) to get a lineage of any sort of animalia going. Couldn’t even find a good-looking sheep. L

So, I had to take refuge in a little café in Seymour for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for some break in the weather. I read *New Idea* from cover to cover and I know now all about Kerri-Ann Kennerley’s 25th wedding anniversary re-affirmation of her vows.

But, after getting past her and the usual pix of glamazons, I couldn’t start reading the recipe pages and the weight-loss pages, let alone the horoscopes and tarot card ads, so I ventured back out into what looked like lighter drizzle than the previous deluge.

Only 100 metres or so down the road to the now usual stop for the roadside sign and, lo and behold, immediately adjacent was the local rozzers’ shop, a place that is well known to a good friend of mine, a member of my readers’ number, a fine gentleman who will, for obvious reasons, remain utterly nameless. Save to say, that the cop-shop in Seymour is a well-known place to him from years past.

So, onwards I trudged back to Melbourne. With the pouring rain came a total abatement in the wind – no borealis buster blowing me back to Melbourne, just driving rain – and then hail and, then hail-lo, I am certain I had a short flurry (or slurry) of snow.

A song came on my ipod thingy – “Riders of the Storm” – good one, Jim. Indeed, much later in the ride came the wailing of John Fogerty and CCR: “I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain???” f~cking oath I had! I couldn’t see anything but rain on the fogged, drops-covered specs!

Things were pretty crook near Tallarook. Bespectacled and goofy such as I am, I could not see a frigging thing. Soaked to the core, I could do nothing but just turn on the GPS (“Glennie Positioning Satellite”) and hope that it intuitively guided me back to Melbourne.

A forlorn site I was as I trudged along the Hume up the big hills and down the insufficiently long declines, with B-Doubles happily churning half the volume of the Sydney Harbour into me as they swept past from two metres away.

I eventually sought some mild refuge at a Macca’s which I thought was at Beveridge, but all I did was have a beverage there – I was actually wallowing in Wallan here.

During the course of this soaky journey, I had cause to have numerous text messages on topics legal. I resolved to change my name to Mr Drowned Rat, LL.B (Hons.). I actually did espy a real, true drowned rat as I walked momentarily across a very dodgy bridge at Kalkallo. The urge to take a photo of a literally drowned rat was overcome by *some* sense of decorum and I continued onto the brow of the hill that saw my Nirvana – being the city, the place where I am familiar and could eventually seek refuge.

Pop – in Epping I hit a massive rock.

Bummer.

I was rushing to have a legal meeting with someone, but the Big Boy upstairs must have had enough fun with me for the day, soaked and permeated with the elements such as I was – frozen hands, wrinkly fingers and in a rush, I didn’t want to fix a puncture then and there but, thank you God, there was a Goldcross Cycle Shop exactly 50 metres away, so I went in there and paid the dosh – just fix it – please. The boys there were agog at the Olympia Testa Rossa, the like of which they had never seen. Fair to say that they were rather “excited”.

Onwards to town and then another meeting. Made it safely into town and, indeed, the sun started shining – gadzooks! But the city was bedlam with people making their way to the footy and it was in Flinders St that I had a small prang with a stupidly slow driver, causing me to fall, abrase the Italian Babe and also my leg and a bit of twistin’ and turnin’ of the body. With all the water on the road, this was truly “Twistin by the Pool”.

Eventually, I made it back to refuge of the car. Another meeting beckoned, so no time to dry off or even change into passably dry clothes. Just rush off.

On my exquisitely beautiful Italian bike, there is but one part that is Taiwanese – it is the super high-tech light with even higher-tech rubber band, holding it in place. It is seen in the associated pix with the computer showing the end upshot of the day’s riding.

A perilous day on the treadley. Wild winds (not necessarily favourable) and the most deeply penetrating rains – ever!

It has taken hours to dry off and only now, some 4-5 hours after the event, am I starting to calm down.

So, to you, Seymour Legge; to you, le Duc de Brassière and to you, Otto von Titslinger – grrrr!!!

But, another log on the Grands Tours de Victoria.