Potty Nutcracker Binbag Scrumper Lorraine Claire Darren Motormouth Hashgate AWOL Sooty 2Bob Puddleduck Danish Dorthe(there; spelt it right!) Chopstix Spunky TinOpener Lemming Mother Theresa Spot Greenfly The Tremblers HeyBabe ShaginaJag and Oscar the shy dog Steamer Uptake Gusset Motox Hamlet Jake the dog Cloggs Baldrick Cheating BGB Wally Shep and Gnarler the not shy at all dog PonyExpress Dumper Septic Ms. Whiplash Eth Generator Bomber Veronica Flash

Motormouth knelt to tie up a lace as we prepared to leave home. "Who’s laying the trail today, Dad?" He queried. "Potty and Nutcracker." I replied. "Good. It won’t be too long then." Came the response. I gasped and tutted. Could the lad be implying that the Hares were a pair of fag-smoking burger junkies with the joint cardiovascular fitness of a small potato? But no. He hastened to add that what he meant was there should be a few short cuts. I let him off with a severe wigging and a light cuff round the earhole. How dare he even think that the pair of fine athletes at the peak of condition who were to be our Hares today could possibly short-change us. And they certainly didn’t. With the help of almost anyone they could con into it they laid a superb trail. Now read on…

I arrived with Motormouth and AWOL, who is a Kiwi Hasher I met only on Friday. She seemed like a friendly soul so I dragged her along to BH³ despite her protestations that our reputation for loose morals, immensely long trails and prolonged drinking had travelled across the world and that she was far too ladylike to join in with our disgusting behaviour. But she did anyway. Now Lemming made the fatal mistake at the On Out of joining me at the front. Silly boy! He seemed a tad miffed to have been led down the first fairly long false trail of the day, especially as I had deliberately let Wally check out the road that I had seen an ‘F’ on earlier. Unfortunately, it also had a muddy track that proved to be the trail. Can’t win ‘em all, I suppose. We beasted onward, frightening various horses as we trod warily between paddocks. Perhaps it was Flash’s hat. Perhaps they had intuitive equine knowledge of Mother Theresa’s earlier footwear - shocking pink flip flops! Trembler lived up to his name by asking if he could hide behind me as he is a bit worried by horses! This was a bit like a sumo wrestler hiding behind a stick insect but we got across safely. We had a fine run alongside the golf course where a sudden, sergeant-major-like "On On!" from my good self ruined what had started out as a perfectly good tee shot. Had I tarried I feel sure the poor chap concerned would have remonstrated bitterly, no doubt waving his niblick threateningly in my direction. I dashed on, then waited for Motormouth, 2Bob and Puddleduck. We trotted over the sports field towards… the river! And this is where the picture comes in. What looked like a knee-deep stream was actually a waist-deep river. Scrumper had earlier bravely forded the thing and placed a large splodge of flour on the tree across the water. Now he sat there, watching to see if his handiwork had been in vain. It hadn’t. Spot, and Wally went in first. Dumper, Motox and (for some reason) Potty followed. Everyone else trotted off left. Of course it was a false so they all had to come back, rather damper in the nadger department than prior to immersion. Well done, Scrumper. It was one of the best falses I’ve seen.

A good long slog through muck and mire brought us to the regroup where Steamer and Shep were asking a pair of ramblers for directions. Shame on the pair of you! Of course there was rather a lot of mud there which began to fly in all directions. So much so that poor, defenceless Cloggs was asking for a big, strong man to hide behind (or so she said). Lemming grabbed new girl Dorthe for use as a human mud shield – not very sporting I felt, but it was Lemming. Now we split for a long/short loop and Uptake imposed his considerable presence at the little bridge next to the ford, thus enabling everyone to benefit from the footwashing properties of the stream. Unfortunately for Lonely, Lemming and Shep (the Baptist) had decided he was in need of a more thorough dunking. Beaver was most impressed that his master had at last decided to join him in a pastime that brings almost as much canine pleasure as shagging a fat, hairy leg. Gusset entered the water and gave a scream that would have done justice to any fat, hairy leg being approached by a dog with a glint in its eye…

So on up the hill, surging past Wally who was desperately trying to give me the benefit of some advice or other. As I rounded the corner I gasped up behind a very fine pair of pins and who should it be but Septic, doing a bit of FRB’ing. I was very impressed with both the running and the pins so I gave her the benefit of my advice which was to speed on or she’d get caught by Wally, a fate worse than being nailed to a barn door by your bits.

We caught up with the walkers/short cutters who were hanging about in a field, apart from ShaginaJag and dog Oscar who were speed-walking up the hill as if the hordes of Ghengis Khan were striding after them. Scrumper kindly nodded that direction for the walkers so Spunky and I took the hint and gleefully ran up after ‘Shaggy’ and into the forest for a check. Bad move getting there first. And an even worse one by me was checking up the hill. It seems that Potty had laid this bit and, thinking that drugs might assist, had shoved an opened bottle of Coke (he's new to it) up each nostril and sniffed mightily. The resulting nasal explosion had catapulted him blindly up the hill, eyeballs streaming, half-empty coke bottles swinging wildly from each nasal orifice, flour cascading from his bag until he reached a point a half-mile up. Unable to speak, he attempted to write a wobbly message in flour but only managed the first ‘F’ in ‘For f**k’s sake’ when he slipped on some rabbit poo and crashed back down through the bushes, a job well done.

It wasn’t much further to the end from here and I followed Spot up a damn great hill where we hurtled breathlessly past Mrs. Trembler and the lovely Danish to join the walkers on the road. Spot went right (sadly wrong) and I went left (happily right – well, left) and, bloody hell, I managed to luck out on the checks each time. Motormouth had obviously put a spurt on and joined me at the On Inn and from there we raced a Shep-less Gnarler over the grass and into the car park.

RA Motox doled out that horrible lager to the following poor sods:-