When I told my brother-in-law we were entering a charity pancake race he said “What is that? Do you have to make pancakes as quickly as possible?” Presumably he has been watching too much Saturday Kitchen and thinks that pancakes are omelettes.

The pancake race is, of course, one of those splendedly eccentric British traditions unknown to my (American) brother-in-law and the origins are interesting — in 1445 a maid in Oxfordshire was cooking pancakes, she was late for church and she unwittingly ran to church still carrying her frying pan with a pancake in it!

Anyway, back to Guildford and my mate from the local radio station shamed me into entering a team into the Pancake race (which the radio had made sure went ahead as the normal organisers couldn’t do it as it was half-term this week — long story).

So, our intrepid team lined up for the start — officiated by our ever-civic spirited MP Anne Milton and we had an extra member of our team in the Guildford reporter for the Surrey Advertiser (thanks Richard!)

We didn’t get off to a good start — apparently I tossed the pancake too high and too slowly, so we lost the competitive advantage we never had, and the others in the team of Uli, Richard and Andrew couldn’t pull back the deficit and we didn’t quite win the race. This gives fuel to the argument as to where you put the weakest member of a relay team …..

More training required for next year …..

Chaz

(photo of naive “high” pancake tossing courtesy of Surrey Advertiser)