Believe it or not, Monday's run was well recci'd, checked, rechecked and, we thought, not a bad run at all. Then came the Sunday afternoon, one hare extremely hung over after a lock-in on Saturday night and the other, just plain knackered. We hadn't even got out of the village and the brain cells were well challenged, but we soldiered through and thought we had cracked it.

Monday produced a beautiful evening, perfect for running, or strolling along aimlessly, and for some ordering a meal just before the circle is called and then casually going into the pub to eat; mutterings were heard about Donut's rather sore knees. The circle was called, the newie, Dina [Pitman - Archive Ed.] gave us a twirl and two visitors, Knickers and The Old ? (sorry) [actually it was Unacceptable - Archive Ed.] from London Hash twirled as well.

After a pathetic introduction of the obstacles en-route, the On-On was called and the pack set off and marvellously took all the false trails around the pub, then off and up to the A1 junction, still going like a well oiled pack. Each false trail taken, until, Lunchbox missed a bar and took the pack into heaven knows where, despite there being no flour, got everyone lost and then when they emerged had to find the right trail. There were two options to go for, the false trail they ignored the other wasn't marked for obvious reasons. So what happens to the poor, knackered, sorrowful back hare who has spent hours, nay days, working hard at this trail studying maps, footpath trail handbooks, atlases, weather charts, had surveyors out, talking to local residents, community services, the air force for aerial shots, making sure that everything possible could have been done to ensure that Monday 24 June 2002's run was simply ok for the keen and hot to trot hashers? She was moaned at, berated, cursed, spat at, slated, criticized, jumped on, stoned, practically hung drawn and quartered simply because the trail was hard to find. Woe is me, woe, woe and thrice woe.

The pack were now well into trail hunting, and off they all shot leaving the knitting circle to amble happily along. Nothing was seen of them again until we reached the golf course. Thought to myself, they are bound to wait on the bridge because it is such a beautiful place to stand and contemplate the lack of knitting circle. But no, we spotted them disappearing into the distance, so just Nik-Nak and meself wondered at the beauty of it all. Except for Pecker, who had been there before, reckons he stood there for a good fifteen minutes waiting for the pack.

Down downs were given to the hares; the visitors; newie; Lunchbox for missing a bar; Good Crack for dobbing on Dina and Shagpile for earlier mentioned berating, but thankfully they got down downs too; Pongo for speeding on the A1 ("had to see how fast the new car would go"); Donut excuses about knees - unable to run - and eating at the pub; G-String for just generally being naughty, Paintball for getting his son's name wrong (is it Pooper or Scooper); Pecker for 350 runs but didn't know himself, so no pressie; Colin [aka Pongo] got the extremely soggy négligée for god knows what, soggy because there was a great deal of poor down down attempts and most of it went on the ground, could be something to do with the appallingly warm Morrison's bitter. There were probably more, but the assistant RA wasn't there to wield the whip, so my apologies for not remembering.

On-On Good Crack and Rajah