Written by Le Caniveau.
Fancy Dress run eh? Well Lunchbox was there as a schoolmaster, and also
wearing fishnet stockings, and Sweatmonster was in a black tuxedo with the
trouser leg bottoms blown apart (which he was still wearing on the Greyhound
run on the following Monday) and reindeer antlers . And the rest had
obviously come as plain-clothes policemen.
As is my reputation, I was a bit late starting out. But what's a head start
for the pack against an athlete like myself. In those intervening minutes
the pack had stormed out of the Cornubia, slipped into the Shakespeare and
were preparing to depart the Bridge Inn, the colossal distance of around 200
yards and four pints - in two hours!. As instructed, I actually backtracked
from the Bridge Inn to the start so that I could validly claim the
attendance statistic.
I returned to the Bridge Inn in time for a pint of Spa - Stiffy had managed
to over-order and the landlady was about to try and put it back in the pipe
when he found a willing stomach. HBK decided to go on to the Bath Ales
Festivity - a dark porter of 5% strength. He's a true athlete and so he's
very careful about what he puts in his body. Lunchbox smacked his lips at
this Christmas Pudding of an ale, and thought he'd better test it first.
"It's not as full as I expected," Lunchbox commented.
"Certainly not now you've taken a big swig out of it," replied HBK.
The conversation then moved on to what people were having for Christmas
dinner, especially now that there is a move away from the bland frozen
supermarket turkeys, although tradition still shifts them by the lorry load.
HBK was having duck, as he was only sharing dinner with his mum and so
didn't need to buy a lot of meat, someone else had plumped for goose, while
there were six having turkey. Lunchbox said he was going to have Beef
Wellington - he'd already got the fillet of beef and he just had to go to
Millets for the wellingtons.
Kerbcrawler joined us not long after with a pack of gut-burner cheddar. When
Slade's "Merry Christmas Everybody" came on the pub jukebox, we started
singing, and even the cheese hummed along! Then it was time to move onto a
new venue, but not before Max and Kneed had joined us and the co-ordination
of drink levels required another delay in departure.
Every pub had to be within sight of the previous one, so the Printer's Devil
was next. Except they had a private party and wouldn't let us in. So we
tried the Stag and Hounds. I was sent back to mark the trail, but found the
Stag and Hounds closed. Apparently the pack had gone onto the Castle Green
(which was also closed) before returning to the Long Bar. Since I was the
only one with any chalk, the markings were somewhat sparse and I found
myself wandering aimlessly in a crowded shopping centre. At this point I
made my excuses and left.
Attendees:
Steve Green - Lunchbox
Dave Battye- Sweatmonster
Simon Littlewood - HBK
Steve Lucas- Sleepy
Tom Ellenrieder- Stiffy
Sarah Nicholl - Kerbcrawler
Paul Lawrenson - Kneed
Maxine Turner - Mad Max
Paul Hodges - Le Caniveau.