After some successful weekends of fitness and team bonding across the country, G Man and Mr Mullineux stepped up to the plate with a combo of fitness, cricket and more fitness on the 21st and 22nd of Feb.
With the weather blindingly good, all started well with a 10km run on Saturday afternoon. Pretty exciting as you can imagine!, but banter and comedy chat courtesy of our friends JB and Tooves kept spirits fairly high as the sweat poured from our swede. It was then off to cricket nets in Oxford, for a game of ‘breathless cricket’!
Breathless cricket? You ask. Well it involved a lot of running, and a lot of cricket all jumbled into one. The finer detail would probably bore most so I shall restrain myself from any ball by ball review. However it was a great physical and mental test, and as tempers started to fray due to the varied interpretations of the rule book, the team spirit was stretched.
Sunday was to be a breeze compared to all that had passed the previous day, and with G having organised a good long walk (30km) to warm down and a pub lunch, we set off into the Chilterns with much anticipation of a good day ahead.
Mmm... Another fine display of map reading had our team enjoying the delights of off piste walking, which led to G Man being relieved of his map reading duties. Nevertheless, we were in beautiful countryside, and the thought of a Sunday pub lunch was keeping all of us going. That crispy Yorkshire pudding and moist beef with oodles of gravy! You could see the hunger on everyone’s face.
We needed to be there for 13:00, and due to some decent map awareness we arrived at 13:15, with all of us worn out and practically salivating like enthusiastic dogs at the thought of the meal ahead. The sign outside the pub reads, “We are closed for a private function”. What! Questions start ringing around my head, and soon blurt out of my mouth with rather less humour than a miserable old g#t!
The next pub was also fully booked, and at this point our self esteem hit an all time low, which was amazing considering how low it got in the breathless cricket. Eventually we ended up finding a curry house which took about another hour to find. Thank the lord! All you can eat curry buffet! Not what the doctor had ordered, but it was warm, edible, and you certainly weren’t going to be hungry when you left!
All in all it was an exceptional weekend, with everything turning out well in the end. Next time we will ensure the pub is open, and the guide has been to map reading school.
A big thanks to Nick (and Phillipa) and G (and Laura) for their efforts.
