Run 702 - Down in the Woods

Run 702,  15^th August 2012.    Rising Sun, West Bagborough    Hare: Down in the Woods

Pack: Bangkok, Pink2Lips, Just Bull, Grasshopper, Brush Off, Why Bother, Dormouse, Big Bird, Floater, Ferret. Sharron, Gymslip, Keith, Liz, Stephan, Tenzing. (16)

The hare was wearing some very smart black and green longs and her assistant was also clad without showing any bare flesh.  Hmmm, very suspicious.

We were told to look out for a killer bull that would be hiding and waiting for us and, if he didn’t get us, night-time might swallow us up in the last ten minutes.  ‘But we have got torches’ they said. ‘Na na nana na’.

Grasshopper had seen a check at Higher House so off we sprinted up the hill like a pot of gold had been spotted.  At Post Office Cottage, I had an attack of ‘bugger this’ syndrome and started to walk.  Grasshopper was heading up to Lydeard Hill while Keith studied a gate to the left.  I followed Gymslip and Stephan over the stile towards Higher Terhill and they were soon calling On On.  

At the white gate and the lane, Gymslip checked up in the direction of Tilbury Park but it was Stephan that called from down the hill and we all gathered at the Terhill corner while 2 footpaths and the lane were investigated.  There was a little delay here as Why Bother searched the horse field, tentatively followed by Big Bird, until excitement erupted at the glimpse of flour.  

It was Gymslip and Stephan again leading us, although no white blobs were seen, to a wildly overgrown and fenced-in footpath that led us to a road with our legs burning….those of us not wearing longs, that is.  We guessed that all the flour had been rubbed out!  It was Ferret’s eagle-eye that discovered a washed-out check and it was Brush Off’s speed that had him hollering the ON towards Shopnoller.  

The fast group were competing between the checks and after Brush Off called On On at the top of some stone steps, an impromptu stop was made, the front of the pack being unaware that Big Bird had gained a swollen ankle by finding a hole for her foot.  She short-cutted back to the cars whilst the doctors, nurses, quacks and consultants tried to link-up with the front of the pack.

The trail took us through the St Pancras Church Lych-gate and up to the totally renovated Rock Farm house displaying it’s golden, new thatch then, ever upwards to a check that many of us didn’t see, where Keith stood, guiding us to the Regroup.   This was a good spot for watching the threatening clouds approaching.

The long, dark hollow-way took us sliding down to the Rising Sun where the sky was, at last, clearing.      

The bull was very clever at hiding.                      

Good one, Nicky.     4.6miles I’m told.