Arriving late as usual at the public car park in Hornby, Cyberseptic and Antiseptic gracefully accepted the task of trashing, but Old Banger refused to give up Dickhead as she said he was keeping her chest warm. The Santa hat turnout was fair to middling. Hares' briefing warned of two beer stops, a gather check and serious shiggy, to which last our hearts (not chests) warmed in anticipation, for some anyway!. In mild, bright conditions (not raining) the trail was soon identified over the road and through a farmyard where the farmer unsuccessfully tried to stop his young collie from following the pack and in frustration mounted his tractor to give chase, roaring past White Noise and spreading the contents of a muddy puddle over her full frontal. Turns out she knew the guy, so spent the next few minutes making the peace with him. Off to a good start then!

The Rambo split at said farm seemed shorter than the Wimps, so soon re-united we exited the Castle grounds and on on across fields in the direction of Wray, many styles later joining the Wenning-side path to a beerless gather at Wray bridge. A second R-W split over the bridge sent the Rs up the hill and Ws along the Roeburn valley and later re-united somewhere up on the fell road for the first beer stop. Refuelled, on on was down the field into the woods, over a Roeburn foot bridge and past the Middlewood Project dwellings and their new water turbine installation which Trolley remarked had a pipe that looked too long and narrow (that's what he says to all the boys). A gruelling climb out of the valley brought the pack to the quaint, barely adequate, corrugated iron bus shelter for two on the Roeburndale road for the second beer stop of the hash. Not that we hard Hashers ever need shelter of course.

From then it was plain sailing (hashing in fact) and relatively shiggy-free despite the Hares' warning, down the road and on inn. RA gave downdowns to the Hares, all the hashers without Santa hats (to the tune of Jingle Bells), Old Banger and Highway for reappearing as new-age virgins, Twisted for being a technophile, Upperskirt for the bad joke about stolen stollen, Lurch for being a 'modest hare' and White Noise for fraternising with farmers!

On-inn at the Royal Oak was excellent with good value food served promptly.