For the Love of Cheese.

For Memorial Day last year, I was crazy and took my family to Gloucestershire, England to witness the historic Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake. The 2009 race attracted over 15,000 people, while the usual attendance has been somewhere around 5,000. This American family of four was fortunate enough to count ourselves among last year’s thousands.

We were living in London at the time, and it seemed quite doable to find our way across rural England. Backpacking with my husband, two tiny kids and a stroller . . . was it feasible? Yes. Practical? Absolutely not.

I don’t know what it was — but when I realize we would be in England at the same time as this cheese race — something inside of me screamed, “Goooo!”

It was as if those wheels of Gloucester Cheese were calling my name, beckoning me to the countryside with their strong, funky flavor. Forget about spending our Bank Holiday weekend touring Windsor Place and taking tea with the Queen, I wanted to witness cheese fly down a hill. And cheer for the brave souls who went down after them.

Little did I know the adventure that laid before of us.

Figuring out transportation in a foreign country is tricky enough (we also explored Bath and Stonehenge that weekend), but throw in the two-mile uphill hike from our hotel to the bottom of Cooper’s Hill? Quite an expedition all by itself.

At one point, our path led up a sharp, steep climb on a narrow dirt road. Ten feet into this escalating excursion, my husband and I both had to grab the stroller by the handle, put our heads down and push. It was scary. I was afraid of losing my children to this mountain and I started to wonder what the heck I was doing. Why was I hiking? I hate hiking. I could be in London right now. Snacking on sweet biscuits and butter-soaked crumpets.

Puffing and groaning, we soon passed couple of local old men. They were sitting outside their homes shouting encouragement to the the fellow passersby. People from Japan, Germany and Australia were hiking next to us. It was a laborious journey for everyone but we were the only ones with a stroller. When these men caught a glimpse of us and our comical situation, it made them catch their breath.

“You’re almost there!” came their booming huzzah. “You can do it!”

This reassurance was just what I needed.

If you want to know what its like to hurl yourself down Cooper’s hill after a wheel of cheese, look at the photo below.

See that tiny dot of a person wearing a red and white shirt? (You may have to click on the photo to enlarge it. Or go here, photo number 8.) This is most likely me. I’m pretty sure it is. We were standing near the ambulances and that building during the races.

I got this photo by Will De Freitas on The Boston Globe  (really great collection of photos of the race here). Will, I hope you don’t mind that I circled myself in your really awesome photo.

Unfortunately, for safety reasons, the cheese race has been canceled this year. As someone who was insane enough to take my family there, I can understand why. Despite the crowded circumstances, I am hoping things are figured out before next years race.

Is it a foolish thing, to throw yourself down a trechourous hill for a wheel of cheese? Yes.

Is it even more absurd to join the thousands of spectators with a five-month old and two-year-old? Possibly, but we weren’t the only parents. (Probably the only ones who took the steep route though, when we got to the top, we saw a much easier way up.)

When the race is on again next year (crossing fingers), will I cheer on those eccentric and zany particpates from where ever I am in the world? You better believe it.

Live on, Cooper’s Hill Cheese Race. The journey there is an adventure enough.