More like David Mitchell than Churchill, I think

The run progressed from the Woodshaw, around the town centre, and back down the Swindon road toward my bus stop, a net 3.4 miles but with the stop at the Churchill only 3 uninterrupted miles.

It is a big roadway eatery and looks like they offer pretty standard fare.  There is a five quid special before five pm which is advertised on boards outside and which the old couple near me commented on to the exclusion of all other topics, like “oh, it was £11.40 they charged for the food and bevvies;” “£11.40 for the food and bevvies, I don’t know how they do it;” “yes, it was five for yours and the half and five more for mine.  Then there was my half;” “ooh, that was never £11.40;” “yes, £11.40.  Because it was five for mine, and…” and on and on for 10 minutes.

I dropped my glass at the bar and asked where the gents was, and the barkeep said, “just between those two pillars there, m’love.” I didn’t see the door beyond and commented I didn’t think that would be especially sanitary.  Walking back I heard the conversation had moved on to “yes, I think they forgot to charge for one of our halves; it was five for yours,” etc.

I need structure when preparing for a marathon or an ultra, even something like the London Marathon which will probably require walking the first mile or so due to the crowd and, as a result, I will not really take too seriously (stopping a few pubs, run a couple of miles backwards, etc).  I’m following Hal Higdon’s Intermediate 1 schedule for marathons to dictate minimum distances although most of my long runs exceed the prescribed ones and I only do speed work once a month or so.  Anyway, I didn’t get out Thursday due to some visitors at the lab so that 3 mile minimum got pushed to Friday and I surveyed a hilly loop in RWB that roughly would bookend with two pubs.

To start, I hopped off the bus a stop too early and got a little quarter-mile warm up jog to the Woodshaw, which I would guess is a lot older than the estate built up around it.  It is an Arkell’s house and they had the Czech-style Pilsner which has to be my favourite yellow beer in this county if not countrywide.  There were two customers and the barkeeper taking the piss out of each other; one customer was a dead ringer (attitude, looks and voice) for Ricky Tomlinson.  I could have lingered all evening in this place but Hal is a slavedriver.

Burn’s Day: everyone has haggis, neeps and tatties.  Wetherspoon’s runs a special so you can get either a Talisker single malt (and a hip flask) or a pint of Caledonian with it, but I got both AND a 1/2 pint of Carling.  Happy Birthday Robbie! (Big lunch with a bunch of hashers, then off to Swindon to do some bits and bobs round the garden before an annual inspection).

I have made better haggis, but I usually skimp on the drinks…thanks Wetherspoons!

My 2nd day of work at Cambridge everyone took tea late in the afternoon and watched Obama’s inauguration ceremony.  He’s been a bit disappointing, overall.

Now it is another election year and it is time to air out my Kucinich for President gear, again, and start putting out my crude (and crudely rendered) political posters…like this one:

You go into these prefabricated places expecting (and rarely disappointed in that expectation) to find prefabricated people.  Such was Rudi’s, so I assumed that this airport bar-esque joint would be populated by folks that at least would understand the airport bar etiquette wherein dude-that-goes-off-by-self isn’t looking to make friends with anyone but his beer.  But, nooooooooooooooo….

I set the camera up to shoot the obligatory 100/100 shot (number 75) and was checking out the shitty results with some glee when this Scotsman comes up and asks if I want him to take a photo for me.

“No, I got it, thanks.” Thinking that would be the end of it.
“But, you were just setting it up on the table and…” but I cut him off with a wave of the hand.
“They’re better when they’re bad.”
“But,” he started.

“I said this suits my purpose, for fuck sake.” But this didn’t put him off either; folks are friendlier the further north you go but I think that just makes them let their retards out unsupervised.

“Oh. Hey! Where are you from? I can detect an accent. Are you Canadian?”
“Yeah, okay, we’ll go with that,” I said while pounding down 2/3 of the pint I had originally hoped to linger over.
“Oh, where then?”
“Look, pal, I’m from Atlanta,” then I burped, stood, and turned my chair completely away from him. Another table full of Americans (where are all these fucking foreigners coming from, anyway?) seemed either amused or nervous but at least they shut up.

“Oh, Georgia, huh?” I turned and had to laugh at this giant, grinning moron. “I changed planes at the airport there once.”
“That’s the place to do it.”

Returning my blessedly empty glass to the barmaid, I said thanks and that it had been a pleasure.

From the Three Crowns, I rolled downhill toward the rail then generally east but drifting north due to mismarked trails, finally reaching a roadway that would take me back to Royal Wootton Bassett for the bus home.  Another steep climb brought me onto the High Street (although I’m not too sure if that is what it is called) and a check of the schedule showed I had 20 minutes before the bus would arrive.  Plenty of time to hit the Angel and change into my dry shirt.

The Angel is an old inn and a welcoming fire was in the large fireplace near the bar.  There were ales but I really fancied a lager this time and got yet another Carling then travelled the plank floors until I found a semi-private area beyond the stairs so I could strip down and re-dress.  Another friendly crowd, here, I got one to snap a photo for the 100/100 challenge and listened to some incomprehensible local football chatter before gulping down the last drop and dashing out to the stop.

My run from Lyneham took some steep hills and at one point I plunged knee-deep into the cesspit of a large dairy…something the cat loved me for upon my eventual return home.  I passed through the hamlet of Sodom without finding a sign that it was indeed where I was; no pillars of salt, no street signs (which are probably great souvenirs).  Finally, having struggled with missing and damaged trail markers which forced reliance on the OS map and a compass I found my way up the steep climb to the ridge where lies Brinkworth and the Three Crowns.

It was cold and windy out but inside it was too hot and humid…fine if you drive to these places as did the 100 or so folks crammed into the house, but after nearly 7 miles of uneven fields with shoes full of cowshite I really couldn’t take the environment and so took my Weighbridge Ant Sally out to the garden to cool off a bit.  It was served a bit warm, close to 20°C, but it had a depth of flavour–chocolate, nuts, malt–that excused this sin.

Toward the end of the beer I started to get a bit chilled and went in to stink up the place a little.  ”You must be lost,” one old codger said and when I looked confused he added, “because you’ve got a map out.”  I smiled and told him that I know exactly where I am, I just don’t really know where I am going next.  This response (or the fact that it came from a bloody foreigner) apparently caused offence and he and the three in his crowd turned away and maintained their silence while I finished up and headed out again.

As if I was revisiting Atlanta in the 70′s, I had planned to run through Sodom (although this time it is the wee Wiltshire hamlet to the north of Lyneham).  The bus dropped me almost in the front door of the White Hart, however, and it would have been rude to pass by without a stop.

It is an old house and you enter with the short bar directly in front of you.  There is an unkempt but welcoming garden to the back and the customers and staff seem especially friendly.  I didn’t chat much, and I feel a bit uncomfortable in towns facing potential as this one is–the closure of RAF Lyneham and the downsizing of the military in general is likely to hit the municipality hard.  Still, for an early Sunday afternoon in the bleak midwinter they were doing a lively trade.

The Blue Boar is what I think of as Abingdon in microcosm…which in turn reminds me a lot of Boston, Massachusetts.  Everywhere you look in the town centre are 17th and 18th century buildings on serpentine streets made for much narrower (and much less) traffic;  the Blue Boar is one of these buildings on one of these streets.  When you get into town there are the trappings of modernity (there’s a Science Park, etc) but you still get the distinct notion that you should reset your watch to match their time–sometime in the mid-1970′s.  This is a good thing.

Irony. They should use a marker to make it say "Not Violent Drunks, but the rest of you lot are okay."

In the Boar, the music was 70′s album only rock but not the kind most AOR stations play.  In fact, I heard interesting cuts by Tom Petty, Harry Chapin (who is usually horrible), and Average White Band that I’m sure NEVER got any play on stations in the States.

The innuendo-marinated landlady had just been describing some chocolate treat as “screaming at me, ‘Eat Me! Eat Me!’” with a bit of animation.  When I stopped to ask for directions to Radley rail station, one of the customers piped up that I would need to catch a bus; “no, really, I’ve run it before…it’s barely three miles but I always get lost in town.”  Landlady dropped her gaze and, on returning it from its tour, said, “oh yes, we can see you are quite fit.”

I’m telling you.  Boston.  This is just like Boston.

The run into Abingdon took longer than planned (old and slow) but I was greeted by the Black Swan.  Warmly greeted, in fact, as some loud drunk sitting on the floor near the pool table in the adjacent room was mouthing off about how Americans have bloody well fucked everything up.  I couldn’t agree more, but decided to yield the, erm, floor to him.

There was a good crowd in there (as many as 20) each keeping to themselves and drinking silently (with our sage philosopher the only exception).