This was the best Marches pre-Christmas event yet! Perhaps we could reverse it next yearso that we go down Lincoln Hill (207 steps) and up Benthall Edge (475 steps). And possibly a little more mud too. Has anyone else noticed that it always rains in Wem but never in Telford? Anyway : very many thanks to Neil, Chris & co. for another excellent day out.

Yes, big thanks to you Chris, Neil, Roger and everybody else who unfailingly have given us a wonderful day out, like you say "far from the madding crowds of Christmas shopping" for the last 3 years. The break from the madness is most welcome, with nothing else to think of for the day than negotiating steps and mud, and what to have on your baked spud at the end.

It's so well timed being the Saturday before Christmas, and I like the simplicity of the event. Usually between 16 and 20 miles, not too hilly, so you don't have to organise a huge rucksack full of supplies and kit just when your head is about to explode with festive organising anyway.

We're off up to West Yorkshire to live, where we have also partaken in some excellent LDWA events, but the Marches group will always have a special place in my calendar, and I wouldn't be surprised if we're still back for next year's Tinsel Trail.

Ta.

Thank you very much Chris and all your helpers for a lovely, informal event. It was my first visit to that part of the country, so it was my first experience of the Wrekin and Ironbridge.
I have never before experienced so many wooden steps up and down in the woods near the power station. It was a novelty to pass so close to such unusual cooling towers. I have never seen red ones before.

I hope to see you again same time next year.

Nick.

I'm suffering from the seasonal problem of a hangover though not one resulting from an excess of hard liquor but rather from a surfeit of organisation of our Group;s Tinsl Trail.

It seemed a good idea 6 years back to close a gap in the LDWA's calendar by putting on an event on the Saturday preceding Christams when every right minded walkers would be seeking a refuge far from the madding crowd of Christmas shopping. We would be that shelter offering a simple ramble in the mud of rural Shropshire with a distance appropriate to the shortest days of the year and of a style likely to attract those few local addicts of challenge walking desperate to continue their recreation the bleak mid-winter.

And so it was until the autumn of 2007 when my post man began a regular trek to my door(at the regulation 4mph of course) with requests for entry to the event. So when we went again to Wem we had an entry of 65 and another 30 came on the day. Our simple organisation coped; just!

This year I shared our advertising between the Strider and our Group Website but I did not foresee the consequences. MY postmen sweated harder under the weight of incoming cheques and my mailbox filled with more posts from would-be entrants than with warnings from on-line banks of security threats to my on-line accounts I do not have.

My the end of October I had 4 entires. By the end of November I ahd 65 then in the week before the postman stopped coming but emails arrived in such quantity that I was on-line morning, noon and night trying to keep up.

By the Thursday preceding the event It dawned on me thay the plannibg for an event of 100 was falling far short. I spent Friday frantically revising upwards to 120 my arrangements for catering, route dsecriptions, papaerwork, certificates and car parking.What could not be upgrades was my human resources of marshals. Unable to sleep I was up at 5.30am on Saturday so that I could drive to the Hall and start unloading my car before the keeper of the keys arrived to unlock.

When at 9.00am peace descended I found to my horror, delight and forebodings we had 131 entries. We had coped so far but could we continue to do so. Our organisation was stretched almost to breaking point but we held. There was blood, sweat toil and tears but; we held. Thanks are due to our walkers who I consider part of the team who helped by car sharing and being of good humour throughout.

To anybody who was offered a rather raw baked potato for the meal at the finish I apologise as the cooking of these spuds cannot easily match sudden bursts of demand for the more you open the oven door to take some out the longer is the cooking as temperature is lost.

As for the final statistics. We had 131 entries, 121 srarters, 50 entries on the day and 4 retirements. The weather was good for late December. Warm, windy, cloudy but with some sun later and in the absence of frost, plenty of mud.

Fir next year I am looking at the possibilities offered along the eastern border of out turf.