Originally this was planned for the start of the Easter holidays, but things don’t always go to plan. I was looking forward to it as I had seen a club mate go there, although after it turned out she had been to Peter Pan parkrun and not Pocket- I mean, they begin with P so in my mind they are the same!
My dad picked me up on the way, with my mum and brother coming along to watch and then to join us for breakfast after.
The parking was in a leisure centre close to the start, and the start was in a field next to a nature reserve. Pocket have two courses, and this was the summer course- a two lap course through the nature reserve, alongside a river and then back to the field. It really was my kind of parkrun- I loved Ellenbrook Fields as it was through varied terrain (fields, woods, alongside a river), it was flat, shaded in places, scenic. Bury Fields reminded me of this too (slightly less flat) and Pocket had the same vibe.
It was the weekend of “man puts on hat” so some people were wearing red, white and blue- the RD explained that people were celebrating the first weekend of the summer course. As someone who purposefully wore no red white or blue that day, pleased me greatly!
We ran together, chatting, although a bit less chatting from me on the second lap- finishing in 28:36 for my fastest time of the year.
I’d seen a statue on the way around so after scanning we wandered back to have a look. It was a life sized model of the tallest man who had lived locally- I liked the style of the metal, and a photo had to be taken to compare our heights of course. We did think about going to the cafe that the team mentioned, in the leisure centre, but when we went in the leisure centre staff told us that the person running the cafe hadn’t turned up yet, so we headed into town. I had seen a new vegan cafe, Oscar’s, open fairly recently and was keen to try it, and happily my family are always keen to try these places too.
They did waffles which I was tempted by, but in the end I went for avocado on toast which was a good choice. My dad went for the same, and both my mum and brother went for the vegan sausage sandwich, apparently very tasty too. They also had these amazing looking cinnamon buns, so we all bought cakes to take home and have later. Later on in the day we met my parents at a garden centre and did some plant shopping (as most of the customers were occupied elsewhere…). The cinnamon bun was very appreciated after some gardening in the rain!
So that was location 98 for me! The Cowell (100 locations) is in sight!
