Thursday 4 March 2010 |
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 To be released from the cells, we had to complete a wacky word search and that got us as far as the exercise yard.......where we had to remove 'the lethal isotope' from the 'cordoned area' with not much more than a few sticks, some washing line, a balloon and some hose pipe. Aren't the British police wonderful.
Anyway, isotope safely removed, we received the key to the gate and made our escape by push bike in glorious sunshine.
Within three and three quarter minutes the rain started, then the hail and finally the wind (but that was more to do with the breakfast than the weather)! Safely wrapped in our paper suits, we managed about 5 miles and then discovered that they were biodegradable, splitting out around the, now rather wet, crutch area!
Arriving in Bridgwater, some time later, we blagged a lunch at the pub, changed our clothes and dragged our cunningly concealed coracles out onto the Bridgwater and Taunton canal. The rain stopped and the sun came out, as we paddled from the 'Boat and Anchor' singing row row row your boat.......!
Meanwhile our push bikes had been cunningly teleported to Fordgate bridge.......a stonking one and a half miles down the canal.....into a headwind. This took us a mere two and a half hours to complete, with folk from houses along the canal coming out to watch us......secretly hoping for the spectacle of a slip and a splash. Rachel's coracle developed a small leak.......but as it wasn't in Joe's coracle, we decided to proceed anyway.....what a lot of fuss over nothing!
On board Rachel's coracle was the Hospice Duck (HD)......and, en route, we found a mate for HD, floating in the reeds......Spiky Duck (SD). SD joined Joe in his coracle, to avoid any ducky misbehaviour and we proceeded swiftly, by coracle standards, to our rendezvous.
At Fordgate, we snuck the coracles away out of sight and recovered our push bikes for a sprint along the canal tow path, desperately trying to make Taunton before dusk. We got to Bathpool in the nick of time.....at about 7pm (well it will be dusk at 7pm soon)....with only a knackered chain and one puncture to slow us down. Our dried out paper suits had, by now, shrunk to a rather fetching skin tight equivalent of lycra leggings, which needed to be peeled away.
In accordance with our bail conditions, we reported in to our probation officer and found out that we were the only daft sods, who had opted for the eco-jail break. Still, at least we won the prize for the 'shortest distance covered'! |
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Article expires: Thursday 1 April 2010 |
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