I have always been of the opinion that nothing can beat a beautiful sunny day spent in the company of charming, witty and intelligent people, so – off to the Staveley hash! After all, as David Cameron found out this week, we all have to compromise, and no one gets everything they want, and at least it was a beautiful sunny day.

Valentines Day, to boot, and the circle started with the distribution of love hearts to the assembled company. Haven’t had that one since the Septics VD r*n a few years back, and nothing has changed really – they still don’t make the ideal accompaniment to beer. So, it was just as well we ran straight past a brewery (Hawkshead) about ten seconds into the proceedings with no thought of stopping, even though by this time we were totally kn*ck*r*d. Fact was, our taste buds had been well and truly sabotaged by the hares with those infernal sweets, leaving us totally immune to the siren-like lure of the heavenly haven of the hop. Conspiracy theorists would say it was done deliberately; whether or not that was so, I would point out that Clause 41, Paragraph 5, Section (a), Sub-section (vii) of LVH3 regulations specifically forbids the by-passing of centres of alcoholic excellence, so future trail-planners please take note.

It wasn’t long before my fellow r*nners started shouting “on on”, and for a while I didn’t understand why, as I hadn’t seen anything. Eventually, though, I discovered the reason – someone had apparently sneezed a few molecules of flour onto the ground along the trail, and it was this which was causing the excitement. Presumably there had only been one bag of flour left in the shop, and the hares needed some of it to make a couple of Victoria Sponges. Plenty of arrows, though, so we did manage to find a very nice trail with some excellent views.

The damage caused by the floods at the end of last year was still very much in evidence, what with bridges destroyed, roads washed away, and skips full of waterlogged furniture dotted here and there. I feel real empathy with the people of Cumbria on this matter – over the Christmas holiday, I stepped in a puddle in Caton and not just my shoes, but also my socks got wet and I had to put them in the washer when I got home. Didn’t even get a mention on North West Tonight, like so many other individual tragedies during this unhappy time.

Nice to see the Sid/ Madge extended clan out in force, plus a couple of new r*nners, plus our old mate Simple. Some regulars were missing today, and overall the field seemed to set quite a swift pace; so much so that Baldbrick, Upperskirt and myself got a bit left behind at the end. To make matters worse, we got trapped in a blizzard so severe that a snowflake even landed on my nose. Complete whiteout. We did stagger into the pub eventually, thankfully, where we found all our friends anxiously sitting around a table planning a rescue mission and plotting a search grid. Either that or they were just drinking beer, it was hard to tell. Full marks to the Eagle & Child for service – all our meals came at the same time, after only a very short wait; no mean feat when there were over a dozen of us, at Sunday lunchtime.

Thank you hares, and on on to the full-mooner in Morecambe on the 22^nd!