2Bob Puddleduck Bev Neil Dwight Baby Sam Centaur Cerberus Neil Premature Richard Spot AWOL Baldrick Ms. Whiplash Iceman Wally Honeymonster Simon Arnie C5 OldFart Keith Spex Dibller Butterfly and Paddy the dog Lonely and Beaver the dog Anne-Marie BGB Itsyor Motox Cheating Salome Lynda Karin James Ryan Fiona Michael Dolly CircuitBreaker GBH Mr & Mrs Blobby Lynda Utopia Foghorn Septic Dumper Glittertits Pissquick Muff Shyeena(but now renamed – see below) Phil Helen

I’ll get into slagging 2Bob and Puddleduck off for laying yet another race later. For the moment I shall delight in telling you about two men and a baby! I swept euphorically into the car park in my beautiful, shiny, day-old new car (you’re right, it hasn’t worn off yet) and backed carefully into the widest space I could see. Opposite me, Dwight and Centaur pulled in so I could see the rear of their car. Centaur got out and went to the pub. Dwight got out and sat in the back. ‘Must be getting changed.’ I thought. Centaur staggered back with two pints of beer. Then Dwight got out of the back seat carrying a baby! It was all superbly timed and extremely amusing to watch so I went over to congratulate them for some excellent material. I was laughing with them and being eyed less than generously by baby Sam (who was mungeing a biscuit) when I met a) newcomer Simon (more of him later) and b) Bev. "What’s the trail like, Bev?" We asked in a lighthearted sort of way. "on’t gnow." She replied smiling and toothless. "een to entist." From this we deduced that she had been earlier to the old fang farrier and had been unable to assist with the trail. ‘Hmm.’ We thought. ‘Good start.’ Add to this the landlady, who berated the good Whiplash for not being told about our arrival when she had a whole load of Quiz Night teams arriving shortly with nowhere to park. Add a later start than expected with no Hare to send us on our merry way. To sum up (add, sum, gedditt!!) it looked like it was going to be a stonker.

We started as we were meant to carry on – hurtling breathlessly along miles of tarmac, plimsolls emitting steam. Trouble was, even when we weren’t on tarmac (a somewhat rare, but occasional treat) the ground was as solid and crusty as Wally’s socks the day after a Hash. And I kept getting the blasted checks wrong. I passed Arnie four times in the space of ten minutes by going miles the wrong way, even finding myself alone with Cheating at one point. I mean, I could have ended up anywhere! 2Bob had obviously prepared for the trail since we saw him early on carrying a bloody great backpack full of water with several tubes entering parts of his body (I’d rather not say which parts). Puddleduck had also confided in me earlier that "Dad and I did some of it on bikes yesterday." Fair enough you might think. Until you know that Puddleduck is something of a whizz on a motorbike.

Premature, Neil, Cerberus and James the miniature marvel (and nephew of Lynda) were leading the pack with people like Wally, AWOL, Simon and Mr. Blobby (in his personalised T-shirt) not far behind. Somehow we got to The Castle pub check and Cerberus and I decided to run the wrong way down a rock-solid field before harking to the liquid warble of a faraway Foghorn in full evening song. Back we staggered across the brick-hard, undulating field to the sensible members of the pack. We fetched up at a road with a Long and Short trail marked and I found myself in the jovial company of Lonely and Beaver. We trotted along the track across the road, chatting amiably. We found ourselves in someone’s front garden. We ran back out again sniggering like schoolboys. Beaver sensibly ignored us and he forged on to the next check. 50 yards to the left we spotted Keith."Are you On?" We called. "Mmmgggfff hhusgpurr." Came the yodelled riposte. He and Baldrick have their own language. We decided to ignore him. 50 yards to our right were new girl Helen (good runner, fine lass) running towards us and Phil, who seemed to have stopped to ponder the wayside flora. Since I had confused both Helen and Phil earlier by explaining The Rules I put the question in English. "Has Phil found flour?" I asked politely. "No, he stopped for a wee." She replied with a giggle, tripping lightly down the left-hand trail. We followed. "Trajectory all right, was it?" Enquired Lonely. "Pressure up to scratch?" I added. Much, much more sniggering took place. And it wasn’t just Lonely and me.

Well we joined up with the short trailers after another bout of tarmac. (Sounds like a bout of diarrhoea doesn’t it? Both leave you feeling breathless, drained and weak at the knees.) People like CircuitBreaker, OldFart, Arnie and C5 milled about aimlessly before darting off through the kids park and frightening the socially depraved teenagers who were just about to improve their skill sets with a little arson and vandalism. Then they all milled aimlessly back since there was no flour. The teenagers gave up and went off to brush up on their mugging technique. We all followed 2Bob’s arrow and dashed past The Green Man at Hurst. Crikey! We were flipping miles away and the Hares kept leading us past damn fine pubs. Somehow we got past a formation team of three ponies in a field. It was amazing. Three fine little ponies all ran about absolutely side by side, while another stood and watched. Which leads me to Centaur, who came galloping back from a search for flour in what appeared to be a well-bombed area. "I never saw nothing." He exclaimed to Itsyor and myself as he passed. We agreed that this must mean he did see something so we carried on after Premature, Neil and OldFart. And, by thunder, we actually found the trail after ½ mile of nothing! There followed a flying cruise by the side of the river, chasing Cheating and BGB who had blatantly short-cutted. After much rapid mileage we fetched up next to Dinton Pastures lakes and no obvious flour. We all split up just as the next group limped out of the undergrowth and somehow I found myself with new chap Simon. We began to hurtle round the lake. I found out he runs about forty minutes a day and loves doing it. ‘Oh great.’ I thought of all the bloody people to run with I get sodding Kanouchi." Especially as we had decided to take the long route round the lake and ignore the alleged trail. We were going so fast and for so long even Simon fell silent. Feet pounded the gravel. Ragged breathing sawed through the air. The scenery blurred into red shift. Time began to creep backwards. But finally the pub was in sight and we dragged the worn tatters of our heaving bodies over to the cars for a good ralph and a spit. Thank God it was finally over.

RA Motox waited until it was utterly dark, then presented the following :-

27/04/02 At Wally and Chris. Call Wally or contact Baldrick for details.