Thank you all for your supportive comments.
I thought about the logistics of being on a course with 2 instructors and 12 students. Would we be hammering through Durham traffic all day and my aged bones struggling to keep up, or would we be standing around watching each other try various exercises at the mercy of the weather. It was the latter of course so my £15 investment in a padded waterproof Hi-Vis jacket was right on the mark.
On the first day while returning from an exercise one of the instructors lost her phone and keys out of her pocket. They clattered on my wheel so we both stopped to recover them. In trying to catch the others up and avoid a speed bump I did some inadvertent off-road skidding, loss of control and eventual recovery with the instructor hanging well back out of the way.
The back wheel took a sharp knock and I thought no more of it. Nice recovery the instructor said but I wished she had been somewhere else.
On the second day after some dry dry note-taking my rear tyre was flat. No time to fix it before the car-park teaching exercises in the rain so I borrowed everyone else's bike one at a time while they delivered their lesson. I learnt that a Brompton would rather fold up than go backwards and that its wet brakes were ornamental only; I learnt that 2 of the girls only ever adjusted the brakes they felt most comfortable using, one front and one rear, and I learnt that the Scott with hydraulic disks and fat tyres was completely unaffected by the wet. Over coffee much was made of my deflated so-called puncture-proof Schwalbe M+ tyres. The tyre was unmarked inside and out but the tube had a 2" split on the rim side when I came to fix it.
On the third day we did lessons in a quiet residential estate and got snowed on. Those of us with unprotected lesson plans had them turned to papier-mache and the instructor told us to act like 10-year-olds so one guy abandoned the group and hid behind a nearby hedge. Remembering to act like a child he started lobbing snowballs at the rest of us.
On the fourth day it was Advanced Cycling and role-play teaching adults. The instructor told us to grow up. The T-junction that the instructors normally used was clear for traffic turning left but had compacted snow and ice for those turning right. It was hairy even for those motorists who thought about the weather conditions. Those who didn't and tried to floor it and whizz through on the amber found themselves stationary with wheels spinning and cross traffic bearing down on them, hooting and waving their arms.
It was no place for training even though spectating was fun.
We cycled up the road to find other junctions and roundabouts and it snowed some more. We acted through our lessons. Would I commute in these conditions, I was asked. I've done so in worse I replied kicking the packed snow out from the mudguards, would you? Absolutely not, she said but then her pink Dahon didn't have mudguards.
We had our photos taken for ID cards and documents for CRB checks were examined and we found that we had all passed and become provisionally accredited cycling instructors.
I now have to wait for the offer of work from my new masters in Liverpool, be watched as I deliver lessons to real children and see if I can gain full accreditation.
It was a good week and I really enjoyed meeting the others (apart from my boss, of course
) but I've a feeling that there's more fun to be had yet.