Runners, Joggers, Walkers, Hashers and Dogs

RealMcCoy Hashgate Cerberus Premature and dog Molly KnackerCatcher Mr Blobby Mrs Blobby Utopia Uplift PartyAnimal John Spot HitchHiker Steve Judy Barry Sarah BumWiper and dog Gnarler C5 Cheating Foghorn HoneyMonster FlourPower OldFart Tor TinOpener Baldrick Spex Bob Alan Pete Steve Jan Setta SlowSucker Matt Adele Alan Lucinda Twanky Christian Ben Motox BGB Zebedee Florence Dumper Lonely and dog Beaver Judith Ms. Whiplash Salome Drexel and dog Maggie

Lost…and Finally Found

We may never see their like again. Sandhurst Joggers and associated runners, that is. They all bounced in to the car park, showing off their natty running vests and handy drink bottles as happy as a greyhound with two tails. They should perhaps have heeded Cloggs half-hour cautionary speech before we On Outed. The poor girl did her best to tell them about all the flour signs, the Extra Long trail and the flour marks that had already been laid by the Army that twisted in and around her trail like a serpent. But I guess they didn’t really know what they were in for. On this baking evening we whirled off like dust devils only to disperse later like so much hot air.

Before we start I must thank Mr Blobby for informing me of a great new service that C5 and wife are offering. Just take your old, worn-out sofas to his new house and chuck them on the fire in the garden. He’ll be more than happy to dispose of any furnishing items. Just ask him!

Of course all the runners started off at race pace and were somewhat taken aback when they found people like Mrs Blobby and Utopia stopping for a chat and other people like Premature and BGB running back towards them. The concept of the ‘False’ hadn’t quite taken root. However, after a few of these we got on to a blasted heath (a fair bit of it showed fire damage) where the open countryside enabled the joggers to see where the Hash was going so they could follow the line of least falsification. Unfortunately, the Hash largely did not know where it was going especially when it was following Army flour, or Cheating, who was ploughing his usual lone furrow. Foghorn, too, was searching vainly ‘mongst the ling for a while. The most unusual sight at the front was Bob, Spex’s husband, who is almost a regular these days. He told me beforehand he was hoping a mixture of map-reading, low cunning and a GCE in lace doily-making would assist his passage, as it were. It obviously did. It was around this point that I happened upon Florence whose face brightened considerably on spotting some youthful Army lads. “Oooh!” She cooed. “Young soldiers!” I didn’t really want to join in any conversation here and tabbed off after OldFart and his attractive daughter Tor (it makes you wonder about heredity, doesn’t it, when you look at father and daughter?). Fifteen minutes later we all begin to fetch up at the regroup, following Matt and his old dad, SlowSucker (another example of genes that can make their own decisions). Who should arrive but Florence, elbows and knees grubby with earth, twigs in her hair and a rather flushed outlook. “I fell over.” She uttered, not very convincingly. “Had a tumble, eh?” Enquired Baldrick sympathetically. Thinking back to the ‘young soldiers’ I felt his explanation stood up rather better than Florence’s.

Premature began to muse on how slim a bum Zebedee had so we all ran off from the Regroup very quickly. This was the start of the Extra Long trail and Spot, Motox, Lonely and Matt were caught out by the apparent Army flour arrow. They jogged back up the hill. Then they jogged back down. It was the right way after all. Confusion sat up and took notice, thinking about a bit of reigning. It wasn’t long before it was taking up the orb and sceptre and parking its bum on the Royal throne. A bar appeared in the forest. Yet there were clearly flour blobs beyond it. We thought we were called back. We weren’t. Some went down the trail. Baldrick and SlowSucker went up the blobs. It was the right way. Ooer.

I began to fear that perhaps the Runners and Joggers were perhaps not fully appreciating the anarchic beauty of our situation. I passed by a neat lady runner as we crackled our way through dry bushes, uphill. “Not your average race, eh?” I proffered in a friendly and somewhat jocular manner. Her response would have been the same if I’d essayed my usual chatup line “Fancy a shag on yonder grassy knoll…doll?” Utter silence; gaze straight ahead; not a break in the rhythmic forest tramping. I figured she was very p****d off that either a) she was lost like the rest of us in the damn forest, or b) I hadn’t asked her the alternate question. Either way, I left her to it and hared off after Zebedee, C5 et al.

Matt, Zebedee, OldFart, C5, KnackerCatcher, Mr Blobby, Spot and I found ourselves well away from the main groups (there was more than one wandering disconsolantly around), completely lost. Bugger! We stood in silence, listening for any calls. A small badger wee’d somewhere nearby. Zebedee eventually decided to go left (a fine move, we discovered later) while the rest of us consulted a small band of civilian wanderers who appeared. Then headed for the A30 somewhere across the countryside. Spot kept our spirits up by informing us he could hear what sounded like the A30. I never knew each road had its own individual noise. Presumably, Spot has studied this phenomenon for years, building up a significant collection of tape recordings, each carefully labelled with titles such as ‘A321 – 3^rd January 1983. 10:05am’. Lucky would be the lady agreeing to join Spot for coffee after a pleasant evening who finds herself regaled with a few favourite road sounds to get her in the mood for a bit of slap n’tickle.

We lost OldFart after we crossed the A30 and the rest of us went cross-country in the general direction of Yately, led largely by the intrepid (and recovering from injury) Mr Blobby. Up hills, down tracks, across car parks, through woodland we went. Unbelievably, we found flour. Even more unbelievably we bumped into some ‘young soldiers’ who pointed us in the right direction to the pub. We gasped out a whispered thanks and took the road past the cemetery, each of us (apart from Matt) picking out a nice, restful spot wherein we might lie. Despite the onset of darkness Spot finally found the track to the pub (probably by sound) and we trailed after him, offering up a silent prayer.

We must, of course, thank Cloggs and Chardonnay who laid the trail in the withering heat of the afternoon only to find some other bugger (i.e. the Army) had laid one first. I think we all got back in the end (including OldFart) ; but I doubt we’ll see many Sandhurst Joggers again for some time to come.…

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Motox presented the following :-

Up and Coming

Nutcracker
Potty