Birthdays and bluebells...

Ice Cream Sian wanted to do the same route as last week to admire the bluebells and, well, it was her birthday....

So we ran to the top of Rudry Common. That's 'run' as in Quick Ceri romping to the top, me and Beagle Nik walking quickly, and Wee Gill and Ice Cream Sian being a bit further behind, not least because Wee Gill suggested a stop to admire the view. This was all part of the Cunning Plan to slow up Ice Cream Sian which meant that the rest of us could set up The Birthday Party at the triangulation point....

So we had fizzy wine in plastic glasses and cupcakes, with a candle in Ice Cream Sian's, her being the birthday girl and all that. Admittedly it would have been a LOT more impressive if the candle had been lit, but the Melodeon Master had only equipped me with a small bit of sandpaper and three matches, all of which blew out before they got the candle going. But we stuck it in the cupcake anyway...

I also found an old BabyBel cheese and a DairyLea triangle in my rucksack - left over from last week's Twin Peaks Challenge picnic. Oddly, nobody seemed keen ...

We took a photo of 4 out of 5 Cows:

Why am I the only one with Jedward hair? I did start out wearing a cool headband thingy but it also seems to be an earmuff headband thingy and when it's on I can't hear a damned thing. Eh?

Weirdly, I was a lot quicker with a small glass of fizzy wine inside me once we set off again. We climbed under a fallen tree (well, some of us did) on Horse Dung Hill and then arrived at the gate that Quick Ceri vaulted over last week. Keen to actually instil some actual 'training' in the Happy Cows, I suggested they come up with various ways of negotiating the obstacle...

Wee Gill climbed through the middle while everybody else watched...

Ice Cream Sian headed for the gate (boo hiss, but it was her birthday so she'll get away with it)...

Quick Ceri reckoned she could scramble underneath while Beagle Nik waited to vault over....

... and then Beagle Nik went through the gate too. Hmmm.

So, two Cows through it (me and Wee Gill), one Cow underneath (Quick Ceri) and TWO Cows wimping out and going through the gate, only one of which was having a birthday....

We carried on past the pub (note: PAST the pub, despite it being a birthday and all that) then through the bluebell woods where the bluebells, wild garlic and wood anemones are all doing their stuff...

And finally back towards the parlour. I say 'towards' because I left them to it about 1k short of the finish - I had to dash home for a visiting mother... I hope they ran uphill to the finish and then went for a sprint finish but, given the lame attempts at obstacles, I'm not so sure...

By next weekend we should have T shirts. So we're planning a 'what we're going to look like' kind of meeting. At the parlour. With ice cream.

Hopefully it will go better as a training session than the 'let's climb over a gate' thing did.