A Sprint Finish

Dear O'H dear and Lovely Tea Jenny,

‘There’s an organised charity walk. Wouldn’t it be lovely to do it as a family?’ said Mary Doll on a parental visit a few weeks ago.

The Prince GALLANTLY offered to stay at home and ‘look after Murphy’. I’m sure there was no sport watching ulterior motive. Quite sure. Youngest Mini Princess managed to convey her lack of enthusiasm quite effectively and was allowed to stay at home with The Prince due to the fear that 8 miles with relentless complaining was going to end in murder.

The day of reckoning arrived and Eldest Mini Princess and I joined Mary Doll, Victor (Meldrew, my Dad), Bro and Nephew.

The first indication that we had different ideas of a lovely family walk was Mary Doll’s insistence on calling it ‘a race’. She has been out power walking for weeks and obsessively checking her speed. ‘There’s an app you know’.

At this point, it might be prudent to explain that the walk was for ‘Ageing Well’ which raises awareness of the benefits of physical activity for those in their twilight years. The average age of the walkers was at least 70.

Mary Doll was quite determined to be ‘ageing better than anyone else’ and took off like a hare out of a trap. Every time she caught up with someone in front, she would sigh loudly and march past them. She would then turn and glare at us menacingly until we meekly shuffled past the people she had elbowed out of the way whilst offering our apologies.

One mile in and I think I can quite safely say that no one was having a lovely time. Victor was mumbling ‘I used to go for walks on my own and now your mother comes on ALL of them’. Nephew was asking EMP why we were running.

I should also mention that Victor has arthritis in both knees and angina.

Eventually, we let her race ahead and ignored the death glares aimed in our direction from the Mo Farrah wannabe.

At the 5 mile mark, there was a soup stop and the Bro and Nephew headed off (as that was all they had signed up for). Mary Doll was clearly feeling a bit left out and deigned to walk with us for the last 3 miles.

At the finish point, we were given a cup of tea and asked to fill out a feedback form. One of the questions was ‘What did you enjoy most about the walk?’. Mary Doll replied…

‘The company’

I almost spat out my tea.

C