It was that time of year again, for our annual foray to the Lake District for a spot of green laning. Most of us set off for Cark in Cartmel on Friday. Ourselves, Pat and Trevor and Eddie travelled up together after having lunch at the Mondeo café. We arrived at the cottages about 3pm , shortly followed by Steve Hawksworth. After we had planned our routes for the following day it was off to the Engine Inn for something to eat and plenty to drink.

The following morning we were up bright and early. As we had so many members laning, we split up in to groups of three. Jonathan and I were with Steve, Lee and Steve Hawksworth.

Steve and Steve decided that we would go through the ford, something Jonathan was not looking forward to (I think he was worried about floating away). As we approached the river I jumped in with Steve, so I could get some good photographs of the others. The ford was quite deep and Jonathan decided that he could not drive the LJ through.

Steve was to pull the LJ through on a rope. On the first attempt Steve got STUCK! So Jonathan had to climb onto the bonnet and attach the rope so that the other Steve could pull him through - confused, I am and I was there. Steve threw the rope to Jonathan (girls throw) and it got nowhere near. So he tried again, and again, and again.

Eventually someone came up with the bright idea of driving Steve's vehicle closer to our side of the river to make it easier to catch the rope. So three vehicles all tied together and being pulled through the ford - looked to me like a recipe for disaster, but surprisingly it worked out OK.

We moved on to the next lane, which had quite a bit of standing water. Anyone that knows a certain Mr Stephen Hawksworth will know that it is not a good idea to kneel at the side of standing water in an attempt to take a good photograph. I stupidly thought that being a gentleman he would have stopped once he got to where I was standing. How very wrong. Fortunately Jonathan had a pair of Steve Goddard's trousers in the back of the LJ (what they were doing there, I dread to think).

We then made our way into Grizdale, but on the way it started to rain, and never stopped all afternoon. We stopped at the Grizdale visitors centre for lunch where we got our own back on Steve Hawksworth. He had also wet Lee when he drove into the branches of a tree under which he was stood with the video camera. So when Steve visited the little boys room, he was closely followed by Lee and the video camera.

Another good night was had in the Engine Inn comprising of plenty of beer, several games of pool, a lot of piss taking, numerous attempts at serviette under the nose balancing and several pints of turbo shandy.