The Cock and Pullet?? Seriously is that a good name for a pub?? That said the beer was marvelous, the staff were great, the pub had wifi, you could pay by card and our Hare desperado enjoyed a slap up meal after he had set his triumphant run; but all this occurred afterwards, now let me take you to the start….
We could have formed a cricket or a football team with a few subs, such was the attendance. It was a balmy evening in Sheldon (not Bakewell). Trunks briefed us on postcodes and the lack of them in these outlying areas, we listened intently but comprehension appeared to be on the level of the ‘clarification of check-backs and back-to-checks’ weekly dialogue.
The check was spotted by our Peru via Hong Kong Hasher and we were off up the hill. A couple of us went right, got wet and nettled then were called back to continue up the hill. We performed a hokey cokey style checking operation at the top, whereby we all spread out, did not find the trail and reconvened several times in the middle. The wisdom of Smittie found the trail in a field slightly down the hill and to the right. He was also to be heard tutting at us bairns for not having spotted it ourselves.
The field was full of cows but they huddled in the corner and we thought we had the better of them on this occasion, at least until Captain Morgan put his hand in cow poo conveniently placed on the stile - the sniggers were audible.
The next section of the trail was Crufts-like in its construction and saw us bounding across fields and jumping walls, Monty notably did not get his backside stuck in one of those V shape stiles and performed an elegant leap through the wider upper section - a ten from Len, so to speak.
As we dipped into the valleys we were engulfed by a fog that could have been straight out of a horror movie, queue a round of trivia questions from Captain Morgan, the answers were Jarvis Cocker, an American Werewolf in London and ‘I dunno’ - alas I cannot remember the questions.
We were soon on a seemingly downward spiral into the valley, pitch blackness set in and we soon came across the treats which were conveniently placed in a rucksack for easy removal. We were treated to short bread and biscuits, we also added a made up snack of Jelly Babies to wind up the Captain. There was a debate on whether there was more jelly on a male than a female jelly baby due the extra parts involved in construction, the consensus was that male jelly babies offered more to chew on. On reflection, and I’ve spent a few days thinking about this, there was obviously some insinuated bragging going on and a worrying neglect to remember some of the parts required to create a female of the species.
Anyway, back on trail, the path continued downwards, it was muddy and rocky and hard going. Then we had to do the same again back up the hill with the added delight of eye level nettles! Being stung in the eyeballs was a whole new experience for many of us but on we trudged.
The way back took us largely under the cover of forest, the humidity was tropical. We followed the river Wye for a while and eventually turned back towards Sheldon. Upon reaching the road instinct kicked in and we managed to choose the route that was 200m from the pub rather than the road to Bakewell.
There to greet us at the watering hole were Desperado, who was mopping up his gravy, and Copper Job who started (read: stepped out of the car park) the run but did not finish. It has to be noted that there was no lack of flour or excess of heather in during this run, all hail Desperado!
Chatter in the pub was eclectic; Jelly Babies, Folk Music, who makes the decisions at home*, Winter Training camp, and putting events sneakily on the shared calendar at home. Finally two glorious pints of Doombar (other ales were available) later we were off back to Sheffield.
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| Just normal conversations here... |
On On,
Sticky Shaft* ’…she makes the small decisions like what happens in the house or in our lives, I make the big decisions like which government we will have…’
-Uglyman philosophizing on the division of duties at home
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