It was already clear your correspondent and coach had run out of imagination and was clutching at loose straws trying to make some kind of link to sell this weeks Saturday run. It is fairly simple formula, mention booze, talk about somewhere hotter than Sevenoaks in mid winter, add in a complement and a few more may turn up. Well fortunately the word gullible has recently been replaced back in the English dictionary after a 7 year absence. You may not have been aware of this, it followed the fairly recent phase in French nationalism (you will be aware of the requirement to play a percentage of French songs on their radio stations). Their successful challenge by the French that the word derives from the French word ‘Gullié’ which means false passage. Whilst this may be the case it appears that the English are not so anti ‘le weekend’ish’ as the French and are happy to keep the word whilst accepting the new origins.
Anyway, too much blah, the point is, quite a lot turned up. But is was damn cold, so I binned the register half way through and off we “allé’d” (just making the point about how much Oaks Blokes embrace multi culturalism), sod the origins Frenchies!)
We all warmed up together like a nice chilled Tio Pepe sherry (Why tio pepe - you start off not knowing why anyone ever drank this stuff, but slowly finding you are getting warm from the middle and no longer mind the taste, as your numbness increases). (Ok, just for clarity at this point, all the links in this weeks report are fairly weak to say the least – I accepted that the only link originally with Bordeaux, was the half way wine gums, which turned out to be fruit pastels anyway – so I am going to try and recover it with some horrible wine type puns. If that doesn’t bring a bit of Champagne sparkle to your face – tough stop reading now!!!
We were under a mile in and Ian and Lars took their group off on to the Merlot route (flat on the nose, with little length on the pallet, cheap and everyone likes it). Not sure if you need the tasting notes with this commentary but they are included for those tea-total’ers who might yet join us. My group, “the rioja’s” as they like to think themselves (Hilly region, robust full of both length and depth and complex characters – yeh right !!). It was an up beat start with the group chatting away like a Gewürztraminer (flowery notes to start but becoming some what sickly after a short time – I will stay no more about the runners wives idea). Half way around the 10K route I decided a bit of extra off road/off path through the woods, a bit of beaujolais nouveau type running (very rough and you can’t believe you have to pay for this S..T).
Still back at the coffee shop Ian, Lars and most of my group, they had already deserted me (as MPs say ‘I refer you to the blog [law of diminishing returns] I wrote some time ago) – yes it is all a bit cheesy.
The coffee – notes and nutty undertones and all that it may have been, but it was a damn long wait. However once it started coming it did not seem to stop. Having ordered one drink, I ended up with three. Good recovery guys, a few strong cups of coffee always required after a heave wine session. Don’t miss Sundays Cheese fest report from the Santa run and make it a cheese and wine party weekend (No more I promise!!!).
