The morning had been forecast as fine at first with rain later. We were all pleased to see a total of thirty Basset Hounds, plus one honorary Basset turn up for the walk and we set off in quite cloudy, cool, but dry, weather.

It seems they are reviving an event which used to happen in Abbot’s Wood when Dusty and I first moved down here, about twenty-four years ago. Previously, people dressed up in various costumes and played historical war games. Today, it seems to have progressed to large water guns. Fortunately, none of the Basset party got soaked.

A new member, Flora, came with her boy Basset Hound, Wellington, and it was very nice to meet them. Flora writes for Horse and Hound, and is planning an article on Bassets for Country Life. Hopefully an extract of this will appear in an edition of Lowdown sometime in the future.

We were about half way round the walk when my Annie (who is almost twelve years old and nearly blind), seemed to be a little distressed. Frankie stayed with me and fortunately had a flask of water which Annie completely finished. By this time everyone else was well ahead and Frankie ’phoned to see if a car could be driven into the forest to pick up Annie.

She couldn’t get an answer, but Annie seemed to perk up and walked; so we continued walking and eventually made it back, only to find that several members had set out to help. Grateful thanks to all of them.

Unfortunately, they missed us and had to do quite a lot of the walk again. So that people can be contacted if anything like this happens again, we are going to suggest that everyone carries a mobile phone (turned-on) and that we keep a record of everyone’s numbers. This will be fully discussed at a future committee meeting.

Then we all got re-united, a lady and gentleman with their dog stopped to talk.

They had a very interesting tale to tell. The lady’s brother was serving in Afghanistan and the dog was rescued from the Taliban, who had very badly treated him. Eventually, he arrived in England and the couple adopted him. We hope that an article explaining this in greater detail will also appear in a future edition of Lowdown.

After all the excitement, some members adjourned to the local pub for lunch and a welcome drink. As the weather was still quite good, we had lunch in the garden, a very nice end to an enjoyable, if hectic, get-together.

(Ed. Many thanks go to Chris and Russell who both joined me in the rather fruitless search to find the separated group. Abbot’s Wood is slashed by numerous pathways and the three of us each came up with our own theory of which was the best one to take. At one point, I rather hoped that another search party would be sent out to find us!)