You may recall I promised you another Time Warp...

Nine years ago, almost to the day, a train of events was set in motion...


The Hankley Halloween Hustle!

This would lead to Merilyn becoming a member of my harem, to me becoming one of Dave Porter's slaves, and to many other things not for children or those of a nervous disposition.

And now, the greatest horror of all: the White Star Running Trick or Treat-athon!

As many of you will know, Andy Palmer and the WSR crew are not entirely on the sensible side, even by the extraordinarily low standards that apply to runners. So they've come up with another virtual event that kind of includes a bit of running I suppose, but mainly it's a series of quests requiring photo/video evidence to win marvelous prizes [probably for rather small values of 'marvelous', but who are we to quibble?]

Amanda, Merilyn and I have entered as a team: we call ourselves The Voyeuristic Intentions!


These, then, are our tasks.

We have chosen Denbies as our location. We gather that Phoenix Running are putting on a real event there today, but we don't think we should get in each other's way. It therefore comes as a bit of a surprise when Merilyn phones us from Denbies a few minutes before we will be arriving ourselves, saying that the car park is absolutely rammed and she's had a struggle to find a space.

We didn't think Rik's event was that big, so we're not quite sure what all these people are doing; but there is indeed little room at the inn.


We end up round the back, by the Surrey Hills Brewery. We aren't sure if we're even supposed to park here, but there's nobody to tell us not to. Obviously we're not the only vehicle there, and more arrive after us. In the past, when they've had things like Bacchus they've opened up additional parking in the fields, but we've never known it quite like this before.


Amanda's Columbia costume has a problem in the hat size department.


I have the opposite problem with a somewhat too-small wig, but here I am, ready to find out if blondes really do have more fun!


Merilyn's skeleton costume appears to fit properly. I'm sure that's cheating.


Our first competition entry: scary.

Well I'm scared!


I guess the church at Ranmore will have to stand in for Frank-N-Furter's castle. It doesn't really show in the pictures, but we've certainly had the rainstorm that one always has to have before entering a spooky Transylvanian castle.

Given the weather, we reckon this is as far as we want to go, so we head back towards Denbies.

Now at the top of the concreted road up the Denbies hill, we have always turned right up the track to Ranmore, but there's also another, narrower, track down to the left which we've never taken. We know logically where it must go to, so we think we'll explore that way on the return journey.


It starts off quite narrow and you can't see anything much through the trees.


But opens out to a view of the vineyard from an angle that in all the years we've been visiting here, we've never seen before. Pity about the rain: it would be stunning in sunshine, I'm sure.


We'll use the vineyard as backdrop for our "abandoned item of clothing" picture. Ok, we've abandoned it ourselves, and we will un-abandon it a few moments later, but any points we may be docked for that have to be more than made up by the cow-pattern buff and the fact that it's a vineyard. This is White Star we're talking about, remember!

We get back to where we're parked (and Merilyn's car is only just around the corner from us, we discover) and find a bit of shelter from the rain in a sort of cloister at the back of the building.


OMG... We've forgotten social distancing. Don't tell anyone!

Now I'm going to do a little time-jump here and bring in a picture out of sequence:


Our entry for "spooky beverage". This is genuine Romanian red wine, and it tastes very nice, not a bit like blood!

We haven't carved any pumpkins, and can't really find anything particularly special that somebody else has carved, so we don't enter that section.

But why the break in the sequence?

Because I want to leave you with this. Nothing can follow this.

Ladies and Gentlemen, will you please put your hands together for... THE VOYEURISTIC INTENTIONS!

Love to all,

Steve.