My plate of cheese
Today’s been the first day I’ve had a proper pants day this Christmas. When I say pants day I don’t mean a bad day I mean a day where I sit in my pants doing absolutely nothing but watching TV. I love pants days. Today’s pants day has seen me watch the 3rd & 4th tests of last year’s Ashes as well as watch highlights of the current Australia vs. India test series. I had a break for some cheese and a nap but other than that that’s all I’ve done. A category A day in my book.
The catalyst to today’s pants day was a combination of the TGCC Festive Walkabout and competing in the Ilmington 10k running race yesterday. I was encouraged to take part in the run by the Pritchard’s who were also taking part. I was diffident at best to the idea of participating whilst in the pub on preceding days and I only tentatively said yes to doing it 24 hours before. Put it this way I was as surprised as they were that I actually turned up as running over Yule usually just doesn’t happen. My hesitancy wasn’t just down to the drinking & eating binges of the season I’d also researched the course and noted that kilometres 1 to 4 were up a hill. It was a nightmare. But I got there in the end – 57m 35s to be precise. 8 minutes off my best but considering it was over Everest and during my feasting period I was pretty pleased. Gareth – who’d been on the pop the day before – did it in 47m 16s. The man is not human.
The run was tough but I was glad that I did it. Especially as it made me feel slightly less guilty about the binge drinking that took place on the evening for the TGCC Festive Walkabout. The fist TGCC Festive Walkabout took place last year as we had some, ahem, important business to attend to (installing Ashfield as Chairman). We then drank in every pub in Alcester to celebrate. This year we just did the latter and stuck to a rigid timetable. It was an unbridled success as 20+ Graftonites put far more concentration into succeeding at this than they would normally on a Saturday afternoon during the cricket season. Meeting @ 6.15pm, we spent half hour in each pub and followed the following route to enable us to take in the televised football: Cross Keys, The Swan, White Lion, The Oak, The Dog & Partridge, The Tuns, The Bear, The Turk’s and the Hollybush. Other than being too inebriated to work a telephone (sorry Lisa & Matt Harvey) it was a success.
I do now ache from head to toe though. Whether that was the run or the ‘walkabout’ remains to be seen. Now i’m eating some more yellow food and having a beer. Mmmmm festive feeding.
