So let’s kick of with a bit of chaos and confusion. Don’t save all the fun for later, just give everybody a bit of a taste of what is to come. The car park was full. The access road was heaving with parked cars, irate residents trying to get out, mums and dads trying to get little darlings to football and impatient hashers trying to get to their weekend thrill. You get the picture no doubt.

  A confrontation between the Establishment and the Plebs then ensued with the GM commenting on the frequency of football games on Sundays and the Hares responding that it wasn’t there on the previous Sunday. [Ed: Home one week/Away the next?] The situation was calmed when the Hares announced there would be a sip stop with bountiful supplies of booze and short cuts and other perks.

  Such was the eagerness of the pack to get away from the ugly scenes that they started out on the trail even before FRB had completed his shuffle to the On Out.
The first check, just a few yards away, was quickly solved and, with the guidance of Hare 3s/4d through the next few checks, all of which were straight, progress was rapid. Along the line of urban sprawl up towards the Bisley Ranges, the sound of gunfire giving a steady line of direction.

  Capt. Webb, who had been humping a rather dainty backpack of his dad’s shooting medals, was able to divert to the range and deliver these treasures to the Range Master. A masterfully planned combination of pleasure and duty.

  The pack had a real head of steam going by now. Thinking about it, that phrase ‘a real head of steam’ is rather appropriate to this narrative, having its origins in the age of steam engines and well before the invention of back checks. A good head of steam sent the engines whipping round and the absence of back checks – they have been invented now but were conspiculously missing today – allowed the pack to gallop apace, at least some of them. Round the perimeter of Sheet’s Heath and so to the canal.

  Here the trail forked, short cutters to the left along the canal and the rest across and into the cemetery.

  The shortcut seemed rather underused but was a pleasant amble along the canal, well floured and clearly laid by Lady C, then off to a rather exclusive development where the residents had laid out a fair replica of SH3 waiting for the On On (See photo below). On to the sip stop where the full trail rejoined and the main pack came loping in on schedule.

  Now, smooth though the short trail had been, the main trail had encountered certain difficulties, one might almost say, shortcomings, to wit an absence of flour. Having got the pack into the cemetery the flour ceased. Of course, the pack were undoubtedly in full sympathy with the hare’s view that it would be disrespectful to scatter flour in a cemetery or on people’s graves. However, that does tend to make it difficult to follow the trail. And for those who, by intuition, instinct or intelligence, did manage to make a reasonable shot at it, further challenges. The exit from the cemetery involved traversing the railway station and that exit was gated and that gate was closed. Escape involved phoning the stationmaster who conceded that the hare had made appropriate arrangements but did not to tell him who would be coming, how many or when.

  That obstacle surmounted, all gathered at the sip stop where jelly babies, pastilles and blue balls had been laid on in generous amounts. There was also ouzo (The GM had some to help him put feeling into his forthcoming diatribe), port and Bayley’s with coffee. What’s not there to suit every palate?

  So back to the start where all sorts of cakes and goodies awaited. There seem to be lots of birthdays these days. Don’t forget to mark yours with an extravaganza of tasty cakes.

  After the GM had said what the GM normally says in these circumstances, the RA told a funny joke (at last) and awarded down downs to a modest array of miscreants. Then MB presented Lord Raleigh with a horsey cravat. Why, you ask? In recognition of his prowess as a tipster for SH3 runners.  All in all, another jolly outing. But when is it ever not?

  On On,

  Tosser