By the time we got there I was dripping and its only three-quarters of a mile away. Had just cooled down nicely when it was time to return home and drip some more.
We went down to have coffee. Couldn't face a skinny doodah or anything like that so we went for iced coffee which was good.
So got talking to the barman. He put on some music from a playlist on his phone. First up was "Life on Mars" by David Bowie. He told me that it was one of his favourite songs.
"It comes from my second favourite album of all time Hunky Dory," I replied.
"I was brought up on that album. My parents used to play it all the time," he said.
Hunky Dory is my favourite Bowie album - full of a developing songwriter, full of gorgeous songs, full of meaning and melody. Mind you some of what went before and some of what came after were pretty damn good as well.
So we went onto the next song - "Hot Love" by T Rex. Hey here was a man with the same kind of musical taste as myself.
"You like T Rex as well then," I said.
"Who," he replied.
"T. Rex. You must have heard of Marc Bolan."
"No."
We did go on to discuss music in Quentin Tarantino movies and in particular in my favourite "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood". There were some real classics in there. Loved that Movie because it told a story from an era and a place I am very interested in - California of the 1960s/1970s.
* * *
Yesterday was a difficult but ultimately satisfying day.
I will have mentioned on more than one occasion that I am trying to write a book about the Le Paradis Massacre. This was the massacre in 1940 of 97 British troops by the Nazis in a small hamlet in Northern France by the name of Le Paradis.
I have been to three memorial days and three trips to the area. A few years ago we set up the Le Paradis Commemoration Group and out of that came the website which you can view at www.leparadismassacre.com.
It was around last summer that I submitted an idea for a book to Pen and Sword books and in October they came back to say they would like to go ahead with the idea.
I already had much of it written but, for some reason, I have put off finishing and editing it. I have no idea why I have done this. I know the subject well and I love writing and the two should have come together to see me work at my usual fast pace to complete the book as I already have all the material.
But I have kept procrastinating and had several false starts which is just not like me. It is almost as if there is a brick wall in front of me that I have to break through but can't quite break down.
So Saturday evening I made a promise that yesterday, with the temperatures expected to soar yet again, I would settle down with an early start and work through the manuscript throughout the day and into the evening in an attempt to break the back of the work.
By 10.30 am I had written part of this blog, done some work on my other publications but not started on Le Paradis. Thankfully I then picked up the portable disc on which I keep the manuscript and started the work. Twelve hours later I gave up for the day, having made some decent progress. Would have made more if the laptop hadn't frozen at one point when I couldn't remember what I had saved and what I hadn't.
My aim is now to have the manuscript finished by the end of September at the absolute latest.