It was not the most auspicious start to the evening. Torrential rain lashed against the windscreen as we drove through seven-foot-deep floods en route to Garstang. Force 10 gales were uprooting trees by the score and depositing them all around us as we swerved to avoid them. A tornado lifted our car several hundred feet into the air but, thankfully, dumped us on the car park of the Royal Oak, so that was OK.

Neither the monsoons nor the hurricanes could prevent an impressive, nay stellar, turnout by LVH3 members. I was accompanied by my old buddies Baldbrick and Upperskirt, Baldbrick had brought along his best mates Upperskirt and Sir Tom Tom, and Upperskirt was there with her chums Baldbrick and Sir Tom Tom, so there were at least nine of us; I’m sure there were dozens more lurking in the background somewhere, but it was dark so I couldn’t see them.

After a late start (two seconds past seven – Twisted is getting sloppy in her old age) we left the car park and crossed the road – all except Upperskirt, that is, who turned left, peeling off from the rest of the pack at a 90 degree angle. Could this be the earliest we’ve ever lost Upperskirt on a r*n? Twisted had marked the trail in the customary manner, but decided to go round with us to prevent anyone from escaping.

Part of the trail took us cross-country, and we had all assumed – incorrectly, as it turned out – that we had the farmland entirely to ourselves. Then, without any warning whatsoever, Baldbrick, who was positioned on our right flank, was suddenly caught unawares by a stampede of feral cattle in full moo, appearing as if from nowhere out of the darkness. I’m not saying the lad was scared, just that he left his own sizeable deposit to add to the already copious amounts of bovine excrement in the field.

After an exhausting six-hour, twenty-mile trek, which must have taken us to the summits of all the mountains around Garstang (couldn’t see, it was dark), we eventually made it back to the Royal Oak just after eight o’clock for some well-deserved solid and liquid refreshment, in the company of Bitter, who joined us for the last half-mile or so, and who had been guarding the pub in our absence.

To all those not in attendance, I say just this: be afraid, be very afraid. Twisted knows who you are. She knows where you live. She knows where you work. She knows where your children go to school. And she WILL be looking for you, just as soon as she gets out of hospital after undergoing all the routine repairs a body of that age requires.

On on to Sunday and somewhere in Cumbria (I think)!