Charming Friends,

On the weekend the Darlings were honoured to be asked to judge the award for the best-dressed female participant in this year's Tweed Ride, presented by Aplomb. The Tweed Ride involved forty or so people of different ages, beautifully dressed in their elegant inspired-by-yesteryear sportswear (not a single pair of jeans or sneakers to be seen), riding their bicycles around Canberra on a beautiful winter day. The hardy cyclists travelled around 15 km, demonstrating delightful camaraderie and very good manners as well as excellent fashion sense. They were a pleasure to observe and we were extremely flattered to be invited by the delightful Mr Freestate of Aplomb (who looked utterly delicious) to greet the riders at the finish.

You can enjoy a photographic slide show from the Tweed Ride at http://the-riotact.com/?p=12407.

It was incredibly difficult to select only one of the wonderful ladies to win the best dressed award, since every single lady we met looked quite amazing. They all had different looks, all of which suited them enormously. After some effort we decided to award the prize to the beautiful Tea who did the entire trip in her corset: a pretty black number that she teamed fetchingly with petticoats and the most amazing little coat. Tea was fabulous and didn't even look slightly dishevelled after her efforts (actually, nobody did, which says a great deal for all of the cyclists). The Darlings are no strangers to corsetry and we know that it must have taken considerable fortitude to wear one all afternoon while cycling, but she brought it off marvellously.

It was such a pity that the afternoon was marred by one horrible fellow who hurled abuse at the cyclists as they rode by on one cycle path, and then waited for the last person in the line to cycle past (a gorgeous lady called Lainey) and then felled her with a blow of his fist! By the time the others realised that Lainey had fallen, they tried to give chase but the cowardly offending fellow had turned tail and fled. When we heard about this we were shocked beyond measure! There are, alas, bad manners about: but this was outright violence and criminal behaviour. The participants of the Tweed Ride behaved beautifully in coming to Lainey's aid and doing their best to comfort her: she was naturally quite shocked but kept her cool admirably.

We were told about this as we waited in the pub for all the participants to arrive, and were reassured that Lainey was unhurt (aside from a bruise and a terrible shock). When we met her we were struck by her courage and her grit. She is from the US - her nation should be proud - it would have been understandable to be in terrible distress but Lainey simply made good use of an ice-pack and calmly joined the group for a well-earned beverage. She was so good-natured, and her fellow cyclists so decent, that we can honestly say that we have rarely seen such a display of good manners and chivalry. What a pity that such nice people should have encountered such a terrible event.

(Whoever would have thought that nicely dressed tweedy cyclists would produce such drastic reactions from Canberrans? Maybe Tweed is the New Punk? If so 'God Save The Tweed Punk'!)

In spite of this unexpected trouble the overall event was a great success and must surely be repeated next year. The organisers have already planned some ways to avoid similar problems next year, and all of the riders seemed happy with the day and keen to continue. We certainly intend to lend our assistance to next year's ride in any way that we can, as we were so impressed with the pleasantness and sartorial elegance of all of the participants. We urge our Charming Friends who enjoy cycling to consider participating in this social outing in future.

And by the way, we were so taken with Lainey's pluck that we have decided to issue a Darling Medal for Courage Under Fire. We should not forget that a cool head under pressure is a form of charm, and in the right situations it can make the world a better place. Lainey is most certainly a Charming Friend and we were grateful to have had the opportunity to meet her and all of the other Tweed Riders.

Yours charmingly
Darla and Blossom Darling