The mere names of some of the most illustrious Surrey Hares inspired confidence in the quality of their forthcoming trails. Who can forget the stunning quality of Eric the Retard’s scenic trails around the rural idylls of Croydon or the Bounder and his early series of flawless trails all over Surrey? Thus, it was with the utmost confidence in the calibre of what was to follow that a slightly diminished but otherwise elite SH3 pack gathered at Holmbury Hill for a Stevie Blunder trail on Remembrance Sunday. Even the chosen car park was inspired, it is one that is usually jam packed with MAMILs unloading or loading mountain bikes and glaring with resentment at non cyclists daring to use ‘their’ car park.

  Typically, use of Hurtwood Car Park 1 can raise the ire of both the GM and the RA to down-down levels before the trail even starts, but not on this occasion. As the bugle notes died away and the two minute silence ended, the pack was straining at the leash to leap into action. Well, Bugsy was straining and had to be let off the leash as a result, but which of two trails was to be followed? The Hare, starting as he evidently meant to carry on, chose not to use SH3 trail marking on an SH3 trail as that would be just plain silly and attempted to illustrate the marking system he had used by drawing noughts and crosses in the car park, while giving the pack a choice of trails. Either they could follow the Pretty trail which would be so easy that FRBs were expected to be able to run the entire distance, or a hard trail, so hard that it would reduce those brave few daring to follow it to a mere walking pace.

  The Pretty trail swiftly led to the summit of Holmbury Hill, complete with commanding views of the Weald and an Iron Age Hill Fort. Archaeologists no longer like the description ‘Hill Fort’ on the excessively picky grounds that many were not on hills and they were not strictly Forts at all but had merely been status symbols for Celtic farmers. With rain-soaked low cloud draped over the hilltop, status symbol or not, a very wet Celtic farmer may have wondered what he was doing up there. Two thousand years later, in better weather, the FRBs on the SH3 Pretty trail may briefly have wondered much the same thing, but here the trail then turned north, away from the precipitous scarp face of the hill favoured only by a really vicious hare (OK, I admit, it was me). It was clearly to be a left hander. Or a figure of eight. Or a cockup. The possibilities were still endless.

  Meanwhile, after only one small cockup, the Hard trail was leading the toughest of the tough, including Dormouse and Sister Anna, through open woodland on the back slope of the hill; here the underfoot hazards were twofold, causing Tiller and others to be fallers. First there was the natural trip hazard of cunningly disguised tree roots but second there were artificial mountain bike jumps dug deep into the path. Who goes out on a bike with a shovel to dig a hole in a nice smooth path? Well, mountain bikers obviously, but at least the few who tried to run down Punami and your Scribe were moderately polite.

  The ease with which one check was solved was nothing at all to do with Eskimo shouting to a distant Mountain Biker to ask if there was any flour at the top of a hill (there was). Eventually, after a short, sharp, uphill slope, the Hard trail swung southwards again but by then even the toughest of the tough like Mrs Robinson and Birthing Blanket were slowing down a bit, giving an opportunity for the runners on the easy, Pretty, trail to catch up, this at a point not far from the Radnor Road water reservoir. This is a site famed in SH3 history for the appearance there, many years ago, of Surrey Hares Burgess and Maclean, both apparently dressed for a starring appearance in Red Square.

  Tricksy checks and a twisty trail meant that easy trail runner Ms Bean was forced to overtake some on the Difficult trail six times. The final part of the trail crossed Radnor Road, then wound gently upwards through damp conifers allowing the recombined pack to emerge opposite the car park which, remarkably, was still MAMIL free.

  Perhaps because Mrs G was at home sweeping up leaves, the GM was in an unusually sunny mood, so he congratulated Stevie Blunder, praising him for a relatively blunder-free trail and welcomed Antipodean visitors in terms unlikely alone to immediately cause Australia to break diplomatic relations or become a Republic. Then he moved on to Namings. Hash names have become kinder recently; I remember the distinct lack of delight on the part of one Antiguan Harriette when Named ‘Doggy Style’ while Bicester H3’s ‘Road Enema’ and Barnes ‘Hyena’ were once so appropriate. Thus, Old Nick became ‘Online Services’; ‘Beelzebub’ is just so difficult to spel rite and when printed on a T-shirt might lead to misunderstandings (my IT Director tells me that of late, ‘Online Services’ is no longer used by some AWS and Microsoft Azure customers who now find that they have ‘Offline Services’ instead). In his Circle preamble, the RA, Bigfoot, covered only the last two thousand years of human history and two hundred million years of Holmbury Hill geological history, which was mildly disappointing, before awarding the usual round of punishments for fallers and other sinners. While down downs were being quaffed, a very late Atalanta appeared on the in trail, apparently, delayed in Peaslake some miles beyond the furthest part of the trail, clearly checking beyond the call of duty.  [It was more to do with getting lost on trail.]

  In a late surprise from Bigfoot and Machinist, ‘SH3 – The Musical’ featured ‘Falling in Mud Again’ and the only rendition I have ever seen of the ‘Lobster Song’ performed in British Sign Language. Or perhaps it was Braile, it was difficult to be sure. The On On at the Kings Head deserves a mention, not least because the Kings Head is still open as a pub and serves decent beer. While other hostelries nearby have succumbed, the once run down Kings Head has been modernised to a very upmarket level. Lord Raleigh and a select few were excused but the Pub management found what they thought was an appropriate place for most of the Hash; in what appeared to be the former cellar.

  On On,

  Eveready