Large turnout for Smart-ARS

Helped by a very pleasant break in the weather, thirty walkers enjoyed a successful Smart-ARS (Audlem Ramblers Society) hike that headed from the car park across the border – it was later revealed that this was more than just the change from Cheshire to Shropshire* – before returning via Bagley Lane and Wood Orchard to the welcoming Lord Combermere.

Aided and tested by twenty one cryptic clues, one team managed to answer all successfully and thus won the coveted Golden Boot trophy, as in our photo of the presentation. Indeed it was more than 'won', it was 'retained' as that team had won last year's inaugural Smart-ARS, thus earning the dubious pleasure of displaying the trophy for twelve months.

A further success next year, and like the original Jules Rimet World Cup, it will be retained by them in perpetuity, forcing the creation of a second Golden Boot.

It was a deserved victory in another sense, as drama had struck during their walk resulting in the eventual victors rescuing a dog from the canal.

Happily ensconced in the pub after two hours of walking in pleasant dry and almost sunny weather, our walkers looked out as the skies suddenly darkened with thunder, lightning and a ferocious hail storm lashed the streets outside, an ideal excuse for another drink.

Less testing intellectually, the normal Short-ARS walks will resume in February with most of this year's programme in the 5 mile-ish range and normally a shortish drive away from Audlem or a walk from the village itself.

*Unmarked on the towpath, and well before reaching the Adderley locks, is the parish, unitary authority, historical county, regional (North West / Midlands), Parliamentary and EU Parliamentary boundary.

Being the most southerly spot anywhere on the regional boundaries of the North West and Yorkshire with the West and East Midlands, it miraculously gives Audlem the distinction of being 'First Village of the North'.

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