R*n 533: Milnthorpe

It must be said that the day didn't get off to the best of starts. About halfway to Milnthorpe I suddenly realised that I had left the house without my sunglasses and Factor 50, not to mention my two-litre bottle of water and salt tablets to combat heat exhaustion and sunstroke. Not to worry, it looked like it might rain anyway - the water falling out of the sky was a bit of a giveaway in that respect - and there were the unmistakeable tell-tale signs that the recent mild spell was about to end, such as the six-inch icicle on the end of my nose and the frostbite in my fingers and toes. So, we continued on our way and, on reaching the Cross Keys, sought a parking space as far as possible from Darth Vader's car, just in case she decided to use it as a battering ram later on.

Food ordered (I like it when we do that at the start, it somehow increases one's resolve to survive), circle completed, we trotted off into the unknown, but not before we had taken part in that other traditional LVH3 ritual - waving to Lurch driving onto the car park just as the rest of us are running out of it. We had been promised a short, flat, dry and shiggy-free r*n, and indeed it must be said that it was short apart from the long bits, flat apart from the hilly bits, and the on inn was completely dry and totally bereft of shiggy. No lies from the hares on this occasion, then.

Upperskirt's trail-finding skills are definitely improving; whereas at the Garstang full-mooner she went off at a tangent immediately on leaving the car park, today she managed a full fifty yards before veering off at ninety degrees to the rest of the pack. Perhaps Baldbrick should consider having her microchipped to facilitate locating her, should the worst happen. Mind you, Baldbrick's talents as a scout are somewhat questionable, as demonstrated by his suggestion that we stick to the middle of a particular field in order to avoid the mud on the periphery. It's just as well Upperskirt is quite tall - at least her nose was still showing above the surface as she sank into the swamp, so she could breathe.

A pleasant trail on the whole, although the cows we encountered as we passed through a couple of farmyards did seem to have personal hygiene issues. Perhaps a few quiet words with the farmer about suitable under-udder deodorants, and the provision of a few rolls of toilet paper in the cowshed, would not go amiss, eh hares?

There was a beer stop - eventually. Our hopes had earlier been raised on no fewer than two occasions, only to be cruelly dashed again, by the sight of the hare-mobile parked in eminently beer-stoppable lay-bys, but which turned out to be refreshment-free. I would remind the hares of LVH3 regulation 26(c), sub-section (iv), paragraph 2, which clearly states, and I quote, "all lay-bys along the trail, provided that they are away from busy major roads, are to be regarded as obligatory beer stops".

After the beer stop, which the hares had thoughtfully placed at the most exposed point on the trail, so that the gale-force winds and lashing rain could cool us down after our exertions, we were shown the pathway to Paradise. Baldbrick, though, preferred the ecstasy of an earlier arrival at the pub, which is where the rest of us joined him ten minutes later. At the circle, a t-shirt bearing the number 400 was presented to Upperskirt. We weren't sure whether that represented the total number of r*ns she had completed, or the number of times she had got lost. Same thing really, I suppose.

On on to the March full-mooner in Lancaster and a BEER FESTIVAL!!