The on in was organic, in every sense……
Scribed by Hawkeye
“A dreaded sunny day, so I meet you at the cemetery gates, Keats and Yeats are on your side, while Wilde is on mine….”, so wrote master lyricist Morrisey in 1986. Its fair to say that his politics and my opinion of him, have changed somewhat since then! But on this sunny Sunday as we tried to squeeze 15 cars in a space for 10 alongside the Milford cemetery gates – the weather was definitely on the ‘Wilde side’.
Black Cat entered the car park looking somewhat flustered and complaining of a battery failure perhaps leading to a longer than planned trail. As briefings go, it wasn’t the best start but we cut the hare a bit of slack, from what we could tell he’d set the basic trail in flour on Saturday afternoon which was then washed away by torrential rain, then set out again on Sunday morning armed with more flour and sawdust and even baking soda into the teeth of a gale, all to keep us on track……
The ‘us’ in question included TIFM, Hawkeye, Secret Squirrel, Wally, Robin Hood, Call Girl, Uphill Gill, Trip Advisor, Cynthia, ITB, Sorry John, 3s4d, Lady Chatterley, Paul Newman and Wurzel. I was caught a bit cold at the start following a conversation with CG and Wally about whether Cemetery was spelt with 3 ‘e’s or 2 ‘e’s and an ‘a’ – suffice it to say that following exhaustive research (Google) I am now confident that the landowner The Nationel Trust isn’t vory goid at spoll-chucking (see picture below). Anyway, on the day with newlyweds, newly re-joined in the pack, we set off to throw caution to the wind.
I find that level ground is a great leveller and this being a largely even heathland landscape I am less inclined to eke out an advantage when the route goes upwards. FRB duties were also evenly distributed amongst a good-sized pack. The early section of the trail was relatively easy to follow and flour soon gave way to sawdust, then to flour and sawdust. In fact, at one point we had both a flour and a sawdust circle within kicking distance that led to an abstruse discussion about the ‘Liar’s Paradox’…. only on the PH3.
Meanwhile on the old parade ground a few mobius loops led to PN, Wurzel and TA running off in different directions whilst the majority of the pack jumped from A to C ignoring B and headed South. We were quickly reunited within eyesight of the kids outdoor playground and headed away once more to take in a tour de force of the military landscape on offer, old bottle dump and all. Across Brook Road and a loop round the only significant hill of the day saw us called to attention by PN on the day’s regroup.
Back across Brook Road things began to dissolve a little when the flour, or was it baking soda trail became invisible. After some microscopic detective work we saw some remnants but in the end the pack en masse headed in the logical direction and regained the trail – no harm done. We skirted the Witley Centre in the wake of SS and then made it to the kids’ outdoor playground and a rendezvous with our hare, anxious to check on our progress.
The on in was organic, in every sense (see ‘In the pub’ section below) and I suspect the hare came close to his out trail on several occasions, but no matter the route home was off road and on track to a final stop with SJ at the memorial to mark and honour the Canadian army’s tenure in the area. Upon which several people then chose to lean and stretch (!) and SS to reflect on today’s line honours.
VERDICT: a well-constructed and rather pleasant run that only clocked in at 5.5miles, despite the hare’s concerns and which, given the recent heavy heavy rain – kept our feet dry. Many thanks Black Cat, especially given the horrendous weather…..all before the pack set forth(!) – you did us proud.
IN THE PUB: The Refectory have a big top to make Billy Smart smart and following some negotiation by the FRD (drinkers) – we secured extensive seating and 3s4d permission to hand round slices of wedding cake! The beers on offer were numerous, though according to Wurzel of varying quality – which was his ruse to have sampled three pints before sitting down to join us! The hare mortgaged his guitar to buy numerous bowls of chips which were eagerly consumed. Then the stories began…….BC had prepared by securing 3 bags of Tesco basic flour (£0.70 per bag), cometh the hour and a bag went missing, plus with large parts washed away he was forced to resort to baking soda and Tesco Organic flour (£1.79). Hence the on in was organic and no doubt the local animals/dogs could probably ‘Taste the difference’ too…On on
PS: …we still want to know where the 4th bag of flour ended up??
