Handbag walking gets serious - Part 1

We’ve completed our trial walking weekend. As I’ve said, our plan is to work up to the Dales Way, so we planned a two day walking excursion. We did two walks, so 11 miles over the two days*, one six mile walk round Bolton Abbey, and a five mile one round Malham and I was remarkably pain free.

As always, the first walk turned into a bit of an adventure. While we walked through the Strid woods there was police helicopter circling above looking for someone who had gone missing. We had to walk before we ate (but only because the first tea shop was full!) When we got to Barden Tower, we found a fab little restaurant, where we ate tea and cakes with some South Africans who were touring the UK, and who couldn’t understand why anyone would walk in this weather. We also got the business history of the place from the woman who runs it.

Walking back, we had time to call in at the shop, before heading through Skipton to our hotel, which we’d booked through late rooms. We knew it specialised in walking holidays. What we didn’t know was that we were booked in with the Cheshire County WI, and the Dudley Ramblers!

As it turned out, it was great fun, (possibly aided by the wine we consumed before dinner). They were very friendly and really wanted to look after us and include us. We’d booked dinner, as we didn’t want the hassle of going out and trying to find somewhere. As the tables were large, everyone had to join in, and they all seemed quite impressed that we were doing this independently (which isn’t difficult if you have a book, and can read a map.)

The funniest moment came after dinner, when they had a quiz. The first round was close up photos of 20 essential things to take with you on a walk. How many did we have? One – the mobile phone!

I think our team mates were a little bemused by our style of walking. Alas, we didn’t win, but our team of 5 came second to a team of 9, who had seen the answers of one round before we started, so once again, we had the moral victory!

* This may not seem a lot, but then you have to factor in the coffee, lunch, and tea stops, and the shopping.

Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are not only dead, but spinning in their graves

I do a pub quiz most Sundays. We do pretty well, though we're rubbish at any sports questions, and I usually have to rely on others for current affairs, unless it's been on the Radio 2 news headlines. I tend to be pretty good on random stuff, such as naming the year in which certain films were released.

There tends to be a shortage of literary questions, so imagine my smugness when the following came up this week:
'In which Shakespeare play do the characters Rozencrantz and Guildenstern appear?'
The landlady had difficulty pronouncing the names.

I started to listen to the debate on the next table. There were at least six of them.
'They sound German!'
'Which was the one about the feuding families? It'll be them.'
'Well, it's bound to be something well known, like Hamlet or Macbeth, it's not going to be something obscure like As You Like It!'
'Which was the Shakespeare play set in Liverpool?'
'Yes, Ronnie Rozencrantz, he played on the wing!'

Suffice to say, there were groans when the answer was announced.

Did I mention we won this week?

On being competitive

It's a belief of mine, frequently stated, that there's no point in being competitive unless you have a chance of winning. Therefore, I wasn't competitive about the cricket but I was incredibly competitive the following day at a pub quiz.

We'd arrived late anyway, so had to be read all the first set of questions separately whilst eveyone else was having a drinks break. V was very honourable, as she could have read some of the answers. I'd like to say I'd have been the same, but I'm not convinced. I thought they were pretty tough, as were the second set, but with a bit of debate, discussion and guesswork, we'd got answers for most of them.

It then came to the scoring, during which I'd got distracted by the fact that there was also a tombola going on, and complaining that, £3 later, all I'd gained was a very small packet of bathsalts!

When we got our question sheets back, and started to go through it, we realised a couple of things. We hadn't got our 'picture sheet' back, and some of the questions which were marked wrong were in fact right, and we should actually have 5 more points. That would be at least 2 points more than those who were being announced as the winners then.

I may have started to rant a bit, but subsided a little when reminded it was for charity. I had to settle for the moral high ground that we actually won, and, as we were declared officially third, a voucher for a Yorkshire Tea loaf. And an invite to come again, which might not have been extended if I'd have made more of a fuss. It's a nice pub, and I'd like to go back.

I still think the moral victory was ours

I've just got back from a quiz night. Now I do love a good quiz, and this one was at a school in the shadow of York Minster. Very civilised too, as they provided supper and wine. Apart from the friend who'd invited me along, I'd never met any of these people before, but did that stop me being loud and competitive? Hmmm, that would be a 'no' then.

It was probably one of the longest quizzes I've been to, with 12 rounds, and breaks for the head teacher to go to the cellar for more wine (its that sort of school!). It was quite a bizarre concept in that, if your team was first at the end of the round, one team member had to answer a 'bonus' question. If you got it right, your score remained the same, if you got it wrong, the team lost two points which were awarded to the team in last place.

Some rounds we did well on (books, geography, history, art, tv and film and famous faces), others not so well (I pretty much opted out of 'science, nature and technology', and 'sport'), but we were frequently in the lead, and had to go for the bonus. I was selected to answer on 'books*'. Sadly, when the question was 'what kind of pig is the Empress of Blandings'? I didn't have a clue, as I've never read the book, plus, I don't know any breeds of pigs - all I could think of was 'a black one'!. Conversely when another member of our team had to give the Christian names of all 3 BeeGees and forgot Barry, I was groaning.

At the end of the last round, we were leading by one point, and it came to the tie break. One of the two people on the team who hadn't answered a bonus so far went up. She happened to be French. The question was 'who was Harold Wilson's Press Secretary'? No idea, so we lost two points, and another team sneaked in and won. But, as the prize was a very ugly trophy, I wasn't too worried.

Me, competitive? Well, I may have punched the air a few times when we got questions right!

*I think it was because I was the only person who recognised the opening line of Little Lord Fauntleroy - and it was a lucky guess on my part!