Today we went to a very local event to us Cheese Rolling – this is done on Coopers Hill each year and though we have lived just donw the road from it for the last three years this was the first time we had a proper oppurtunity to go.
It was bedlam – from my husbands family tellings of yestur-year I was expecting about twenty people chasing cheeses down the piece of hill we dubbed ‘the shaved bit’ when we first moved here. But there was thousands of people – no really there were – they were everywhere and we could not see a thing – we couldn’t even park near the event (though later found out that there was an official car park for the princely sum of £5). We walked through the woods and sat at the top behind the crowd looking at all the contestants queuing to chase a Double Gloucester Cheese down a very steep hill – people regually break limbs at this event and the St Johns Ambulence dudes were there in force.
The event seemed to be dominated by Kiwi sports peeps i.e. New Zealand rugby players and the like. The only female runner I saw I think was from New Zealand or Australia and was wearing a furry red Mrs Santa Bikini! She was splattered with mud and thrilled to have survived in tact!
We ate our picnic of double glouchester cheese sandwitches with home made Banana chutney and/or brambly apple sauce and looked around at the people we saw hats that looked like wedges of cheese, bananas, giant flowers, a man with a chicken on his head, gladiators, a man with nothing but a strip of florescent yellow :/ a giant mole, patients and Drs, a cow, people riding emus, super heroes, and a variety of night attire!
There were also a number of people swinging in the trees with flagons of cider.
Lots of the male runners where walking around with no t-shirts on too!
Once we had finished our apple and ginger juice we walked down the hill to see if we could see anything from the bottom of the hill. We could but unfrortunatly just before the womens race there was an issue over an ambulance being needed and we had to wait for another before anymore races could happen.
An uphill race took place which we all highly cheered especially a little one being helped by someone in a flourescent jacket 🙂
In the long wait periods spectators would get onto the hill from the side lines and end up rolling down to much appluse and cheering.
There was a van selling cheeses and another doing hot dogs and somewhere there was a rumour of ice creams being sold though the crowd density prevented us from exploring the direction of the ice creams! The weather was strangly fuggy and when we first arrived it was drizzling.
A group of brightly coloured people came down the hill and we thought it was another race but it wasn’t – it was a stretcher crew 🙁 From what we heard it was one of the young guys up the tree – he’d fallen out – no idea how he is but hoping he’s ok.
I sort of lost heart at this point and squeezed out of the crowds and therefore missed the cheese rolling everyone else in our group saw.
The event ran about 1 1/2 hrs over schedule but considering the ambulance stuff thats not bad.
We walked down the hill whilst my hubby went to get the car which was up and then down the other side of the hill. We sat and had another smaller picnic in the car park watching the crowds disperse. There was two young men with a cheese who lay down with it infront of the sign for Nut Hill for an unmissable photo oppurtunity!
I unfortunatly forgot the camera so had to steal my husbands phone – as soon as I get them off of there I will add them to the post – he also used his camera goggles to take a video of his journey to retrieve us which I hope to add too 🙂
But why the title I hear you ask?
Well my three year old thought we were going to see a cheese roll and if we were going to see one and so were all these people then it had to be a giant cheese roll. Her grandfather confused things more by saying they should roll lettuces down the hill too so that there would be cheese and lettuce rolls – sigh!
