| Date | Hare | Scribe |
|---|---|---|
| 25 Jun 2023 | Jeremy | Annie |
The KVH was truly blessed indeed on this occasion. To start with we had a wonderful venue at Jeremy and Catherine’s beautiful home and garden, the promise of abundant food and beverages on our return, and of course, glorious weather.
After a comprehensive briefing with clear details of the trail from our hare, we set off in high spirits. The first thing I noticed, being a gardener is that the roses in Ramsbury are superb, they were everywhere, round doors, against walls and over arches and the scent was gorgeous. Our next treat was the cool shade by the two bridges and we watched for a while as children played in the pools, not an iPad in sight – good old fashioned fun.
And then it all turned to rats, well, for the walkers anyway. Let it be known that runners “dash on a Hash” whilst the rest of us “talk whilst we walk”. Nothing wrong with that except the walkers frequently don’t pay attention. So we missed a clearly marked sign. Undeterred by the lack of flour we ventured further, and despite comments of “has anyone seen any dots?” we carried on, confident that we couldn’t possibly be wrong. However, Jeremy had sent a drone up and saw we were not following his trail. He phoned me and tried to rectify our foolish error, but my lack of spatial awareness and inability to describe our surroundings, well it was hopeless. Jeremy’s frustration was palpable. After several tries we gave up and retraced our steps, passing the arrow we had missed on the way out, all feeling rather guilty as we knew Jeremy had been up at 5am to lay the trail.
I think we were forgiven as we were allowed back into the garden and we gathered for the aprés. The buffet was laid out, bottles opened and drinks poured, and the gossiping began. Before long the runners returned, pink and shiny, they at least had done the trail justice. A small gaggle of walkers arrived, they had managed better than most and done more than blunder around for a mile or so as we did. At least we could all enjoy the views of this lovely corner of our county from the comfort of the garden.
GOM thanked Jeremy and Catherine from all of us for their warm and generous hospitality. After that we relaxed in the sunshine, or the shade of the kitchen and a few of us sat in a cooling breeze by the stream. The temptation became too much for some of us and we sat with our feet in the stream, so refreshing, although Hilary was disappointed there was a lack of tiny fish to nibble our feet for a fish pedicure (no thank you!).
NB. Can I just point out that Hilary and Henry did NOT paint their toenails for this special event…. Shocking!
By the way, Hilary sat on a chair by the river and broke it, such is her vast bulk and enormous weight.
Jeremy, Catherine – you did us proud.