"Here comes Summer" I promised, but the miserable evening which heralded the first event of the 2004 series did not live up that expectation. I hope the courses were more to your liking: I followed my usual philosophy of making them fairly straightforward, with all controls on clearly defined features to save you the frustration of hunting around to try and spot the mini controls in the gloom. The only real worry was the way the foresters are decimating the trees; creating new tracks, mud and deep brashings in the process. But this is perfectly proper in a working forest, and at least there were few brambles or bracken to impede you.

I have to thank Ruth Lockley for offering to collect controls in, but unfortunately there were only the two of us left at this point and dusk was threatening, so the prospects of completing the task in safety were nil. It would have been nice if 2 or 3 others had also offered, as the job would then have been a simple one, and would have spared me the necessity of making an unplanned special journey back there at 8.00 am the next morning to retrieve them all in the (now torrential) rain.

Robert Vickers

Orange 3.5 km

1. Dave Goodliffe (WRE) 52.04
2. Geoffrey Foster 56.49
3. Peter Bylett 72.55
4. Valerie Bell 84.07

Green 3.6 km

1. Mattias Jonsson (SWE) 37.26
2. David Williams 37.56
3. Matt Boden 38.10
4. Brian Laycock 40.03
5. Mike Farrington 40.32
6. Russ Fauset 41.39
7. Martyn Bickerton 42.00
8. Steve Nightingale 46.19
9. Judith Taylor 46.53
10. April Andrews 50.07
11. Heather Hartmann 50.34
12. Rosey Hartmann 52.40
13= Alison Sloman 56.02
13= Lucy Partridge (BUOC) 56.02
15. Carol Farrington 59.08
16. Sam Boden (IND) 64.30
17.Paul Hammond 74.22

Blue 5.5 km

1. Robert Farrington 47.30
2. Ant Clerici 58.34
3. Simon Goodwin 62.19
4. Mike Baggott 63.22
5. Colin Spears 65.52
6. Stephen Clark 66.15
Dennis Mews (incomplete)

I think 27th April is just about the earliest we can hold an SEE... very dark if it is raining.