Village Sign Hunt - 25 September 11

Cambridgeshire Village Sign Hunt

“They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere! Is he in Heaven, or is he in Hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel!”

OK, well it wasn’t the Scarlett Pimpernel we were looking for, nor were we Frenchies but my goodness some of those which we sought were definitely elusive. I speak of course of Bill and Sue Medlow’s excellent Village Sign Hunt around and about Cambridgeshire on Sunday 25 September.

Having been given clear instructions to bring maps and leave the sat nav at home Sharon and myself turned up well prepared with Ordnance Survey Maps covering most of East Anglia, (just in case) and they did prove rather useful. There was one slight drawback however, some of them were a little bit out of date (who now remembers the old A45 and the A604 to Huntingdon!) and having set off from EMG in Cambridge full of confidence and pretty sure we had already worked out the shortest route between the given village sign destinations we promptly took a wrong turn off the A14 and ended up heading several miles in the wrong direction, oh well. No matter though, we persevered and managed to find all the signs, eventually, the most elusive being in Exning, which had two signs apparently, but having first found just a post (sign having been nicked!) sign two at the opposite end of the village, even with helpful direction from a local, proved very tricky.

The end point for the hunt was the Lazy Otter at Stretham where most of us had a super Sunday lunch before the all-important results were announced. So finding all the signs in the shortest distance travelled were John and Hillary who were awarded with a special medal and a prize. Second place James and Mandy, third place Kate and Robbie. Yours truly came in joint sixth place, with lots of excuses!

A really great day out, its always nice to have a bit of navigation a challenge, so its thanks to Sue and Bill Medlow for all their hard work sign finding and question writing. Nice one.

Martin Curtis