Few of the Last

BlowJob Swallow Spex Baldrick Tinopener Lilo Lil Cerberis BillyBullshit Foghorn Dutch Vertigo Motox BlouseBlazer Spot Dumper Septic Cheating Cloggs Itsyor Fiddler Handful Centaur Old Dog Simple Dunny Zebedee Florence Ladybird Potty Lemming Mother Quack Donut Fannypack Bogbrush Jwax Ms Whiplash Salome The Tremblers Shitshoveller Penny Pitstop Loudontasteless Nick Honeymonster Iceman Whinge TC Caboose Shandyman Sue Paula Jay + Alfie the Beagle Slick the Lick Smoking Hardon Varry

The Hare’s Tale !

I am happy to lay a trail but I always hate going to the venue and asking the publican whether they are able and willing to have a ragtag group of eccentrics fill their car park and muddy their carpets. Inevitably I avoid it to the last minute when Florence is leaving increasingly desperate messages on my answer machine. This time even my co-hare was pressurising me to “sort it out”. So after further discussion I plumped on Finchampstead as it is familiar running territory and plucked up the courage and called in at The Greyhound on my way home from work. Actually I drove into the car-park and out again avoiding the skips and other builders rubbish outside a hostelry that was “Closed for re-furbishment”! Now with absolutely no wiggle room I opted for the nearest alternative and where I’ve laid a trail from before and was welcomed with open arms by the co-manager of the Queens Oak who was even more delighted that my chosen date coincided with his weekend off!

I did one peremptory recce on my own and decided on a basic trail – you know it always goes this way! C5 and I then met on the Thursday before to fill in the finer details like where, why, how long etc. I was completely knackered having been persuaded by C5 to join with the Oxford Hash the night before running round Abingdon. Using John Cleese’s directions we found the start with ease (A round trip of 96 miles!). Twanky, TT2 and the late as ever Zebedee and Florence were also on hand for a tour of the housing estates and Eggplant Curry (Yum Yum!)

The day of our run dawned and a bleary eyed set of Hares gathered their bags of flour and set about laying false trails down six of the seven possible options out from the pub and then off down our chosen route On! Apart from being a dull morning it is a beautiful area and with the leaves well on the turn it was good fun finding extra bits of shiggy and denser and denser bits of forest to plunge you all through! We made good progress and apart from several of the largest dogs I have ever seen taking an interest in us and the apparent inevitable rain shower half way round (C5 is apparently a rain god and he always gets wet!) we were back at the pub by 10.40 in time to change and prepare for the arrival of our invited guests.

We stood in silence to remember the fallen from past wars as Simple played the “Last Post” on his radio and then read a short and moving poem.

A quick explanation of the markings for our visitors and a brief introduction of the delights ahead and we were off and almost all in the wrong direction! Having only remembered to print a map for the walkers at 2am in the morning I was ill prepared for the number of walkers (three of the copies only covered half the trail!) and it was soon obvious that as the sweeper upper I was going to have to be on my toes and as I was already hungover and exhausted, a long morning beckoned.

It is however always good to see Jwax, Ms Whiplash, Penny and Lilo Lil amongst others and I did my best to guide them down a couple of early short cuts. Catching up myself I got back to the mid pack and near where we had laid a check in sight of the pub which I had thought even the daftest of our company would not be fooled. Needless to say Zeb had checked out to the false across the field though it is not clear whether as I have always suspected, he has no sense of direction or does it for the exercise (There are more pleasant ways you know!) On to the first re-group and then to the first opportunity to short cut the middle of the pack by a bit of misdirection though this did waste the next bar we had laid. At this stage we had lost one group of walkers who had the only proper map as they too had followed the arrow in the wrong direction. As Dutch put it later “the map was crap so we went our own way! “ Charming but even Kneetrembler looked relaxed afterwards: Trembler just looked thirsty! Itsyor at this stage admonished us for going “off piste” but our map clearly shows a footpath and the free range Alsatians weren’t out today! The climb over the fence back onto legal land slowed things up a bit more.

I meanwhile was trying to catch up across the top of the ridges to assist my beleaguered fellow Hare. Another short cut which missed out a dash down into a beautiful dip littered with Autumn leaves but was also scattered with rusting cars and we were at the second re-group. It all went a bit pear shaped at this stage as a group of the short cutters set off early never to be seen again! A bit of trail had been laid the previous day and confused by a sign left for the walkers, led doubtless by Simple (who is a word very close to walker?) they decided to do the first part of the trail again.

I meanwhile was looking after Dumper and Septic (I’ve lost them before), chatting to Whinge and meeting up with Billy who was on the short trail for some reason whilst C5 guided a surprisingly large group including Mother, Lemming, Tinopener et al on the long trail via a new footpath and then on to the Church.

Our lost lambs eventually returned and a thank you to Shandyman and Potty for asking the way home. I blame the RA – He blamed the Hares. Caboose was glad to warm up Swallow and Donut in the circle and hasn’t been so happy since the last time he went on the Bluebell Railway!

A good day we hope enjoyed by all and that hot bath later was so good!

Joint Hash Camra 2007 2^nd December – Sonning Village Hall

Sample Butler’s finest beers + Food + Xmas Pud. £4 for food and run(s). Book in with C5. Beer £1 a pint. Bring plate, cutlery, and drinking vessel. The Air Ambulance will be on stand-by!

On On. Slowsucker:

Down Downs

Simple presented the following:-

A swift half.

Scary!

Better team work than the All Blacks

Up and Coming