Our hard core pack was swelled by a total of five visitors. If you were one of those visitors and you are reading this (duh!) then I must apologise for mislaying my notes in the recycling bin that the council has just emptied, which means a futile attempt on my part to remember names.

There was a mum and young son, virgins, there was Andy, wife, and son who introduced themselves as Dasher, Vixen and Prancer, not virgins.

The hares gave the Hashers a full description of the hazards about to be faced, otherwise known as lies, before the pack of eighteen scorched north up the road past the church and east into Firtree Piece.

The gymnastics started early with Pancsi executing a perfect tripple twist with flat on face which he blamed on Belle, as if ? Conservation areas prevented us from a full enjoyment of Batty's Park as we skirted the woods north of Wythy Piece before heading south to Rosamund's Hill and a showstopper of a check. While waiting for a resolution many of the pack indulged in a Blackberry forage and were loath to move on when the trail south again to Forest Hanger was discovered.

This is a bit of a long slog so the hares had placed a Fish Hook for four about three quarters of the way along. Pancsi, Mussolini and two others reached it first and headed back towards the pack. The next in line, The Ref believed them when they said it was a Hook for five, and he joined them rather than going to the Hook to look. There is a lesson in there somewhere.

All this time Andy's son, was dashing about thither and yon like a ferret on speed, mostly along false trails. I though that he would never keep this up, and sure enough as we turned west towards the road he slowed to a walk, but only to roll up his long sleeves before really trying to find a true trail first.

We crossed the road into the even larger maze of paths in the western side of the forest and executed an anti-clockwise loop without any incident to reach the northern edge and the On-In after about one hour and twenty minutes of convivial hashing.

At the circle there were nominations for The Ref for being gullible, no mention of Pancsi's acrobatics however, his participation along with Sinbad in a major short cut right in front of the JM was brought up. The Hash-It was given to Sinbad for leading the way on the short cut even though he raised a protest based on the premise that he is too old and decrepit to even lift it let alone run with it.

We then adjourned to The Victoria where the leftovers from the Ale Festival provided a good choice of beer and the garden was a little too chilly for some.