Hares and Hashers

Donut Hashgate Bogbrush Fannybag Honeymonster and dog Max Anna Iceman Cerberus Nappyrash PP and dog Barney Whinge TC Colin Loudontasteless Spex Shitshoveller Penny Pitystop Slowsucker Itsyor Fiddler Caboose Old Dog Dumper Septic Slippery Nipples Simple Skids Lilo and dog Emma TinOpener The Tremblers Florence Zebedee BGB Motox David Sue Dave Shandyman

Haring Along

This being Remembrance Sunday we duly stood and thought our thoughts silently and respectfully while Simple read out ‘In Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae. There is a lot more to think about this year and we all hope for the safe and swift return of our servicemen and women to their families; not forgetting those who have lost someone dear to them now or in the past.

“Ok. I’ve had enough now.” Panted Donut. It was Saturday and we were laying the Trail ready for Sunday. The sky was blue and kites wheeled and soared just above the trees, whistling with that curious reedy exclamation mark they put on the end of their call. I think they were rather surprised at what we were doing. Admittedly, we had put in maybe a couple of miles of flour placement prior to this point – it was not that far ahead of where on the Sunday I had trotted up to the Check in the middle of the road where the FRBs milled aimlessly and Slowsucker bleated that, “we were on the way back to the pub and now we’re going away from it again!” Lord, they’d only done about 7 miles at that point and they had yet another beautiful forest to wend through which included what I felt was a superbly laid Back Check that even had Cerberus, who knows the area well, bamboozled. This was where Itsyor confided in a puzzled manner, “I still don’t know whether we are on a left or right-hand Trail.” Music to a Hares ears. One of the axiomatic points for laying a successful Trail is that the FRBs are well and truly confused.

However, confusing or not, the Hares have to put down sufficient markings to ensure that the FRBs never lose the Trail entirely – and the Pack, where possible stay together. And put in some shortcuts so a choice can be made. Of course, trying to guess where the Hashers will go is next to impossible as several laws of Hashing apply themselves in a very random manner. For instance, from the On Out we had expected the FRBs to follow the flour to the left as they crossed the road but they all turned right, ignored the blobs and had to be called back on track. I really didn’t want them to miss the joy of that first Bar-9 that I had so carefully laid a little earlier. The idea was to send the walkers and slower runners along the true On Out so that the faster runners could catch them up when they entered the forest. This worked a treat and continued when the walkers kept straight on while the FRBs wiggled amongst the trees and then way up into the hill on the side. Laying this part on Saturday had been a true pleasure since the sun had been shining through the trees and lighting up the crunchy copper carpet of beech leaves that lay thickly on the ground.

The Sunday morning was not quite so pleasant, with a thick layer of grey cloud above and a sudden, heavy shower as Donut and I relaxed in the car after freshening many of the Checks. Bogbrush and Fannybag had arrived early, the delays they had expected in Pangbourne not materialising. Bogbrush stepped out of his car, waved at us and stonked over to the (closed) pub in the rain. He came back looking a little crestfallen so I opened the door for a chat. “There’s a bush over there if you want the loo BB.” I opened helpfully. “I’ll need a lot bigger one for what I need.” He answered lugubriously. I kind of wished he hadn’t told me that. Iceman pulled up next to us with a rather attractive lady in the passenger seat. “Ay, Ay.” We nodded to each other, entirely misconstruing. Anna had recently moved into the area from New York and had got his details off the BH³ website, cadging a lift to the day’s extravaganza. Poor Iceman hardly got a look-in anyway after Caboose turned up. Like a male lyre bird he fluffed up his tail feathers, strutted and warbled, inviting her to marvel at his perspicacity and intelligence. I was impressed. And she is a very nice lady. We watched the rest of the Hash arrive, enjoying particularly the parking elegance of PP and Nappy Rash. Just behind where they were backing their car is a slim ditch, just about the width of a tyre and perfectly capable of trapping the unsuspecting driver. While Barney yapped and barked like a lunatic in Nappy’s ear PP suddenly felt the rear of the car begin to lurch downwards and floored the accelerator, resulting a in a slewing and wowing sound from the tyres as they scrabbled for purchase on the soaking grass. Wonderful, panic-ridden stuff and well-deserving of the small ripple of applause as the car stopped with an inch to spare. Whinge, with his dad (or was it his brother), Colin, beside him launched a beaming grin. As did we all.

After which we On Outed, following Slowsucker’s splendid and humorous introduction of the Hares. One of his best as GM.

One thing Donut and I tried to do when laying the Trail was to keep it interesting and break up the long running sections where possible. So we put in Bar Checks, standard Checks, many one-blob Checks, Two-Way Checks, a Regroup, Long and Short splits and kept most of it in the woods. And most important of all marked the route with a flour arrow after the Pack had gone past. This proved particularly important to Zebedee and Florence, who turned up just as we finished, then ran the Trail just for the hell of it. Without the markings they would have been out there for hours. As indeed would Motox who we thought we had lost. Apparently, he met someone he knew towards the end of the Trail and stopped for a chat. Without the additional blobs and arrows he’d have been at it for quite a time so inexp[erienced Hares please note.

We’d recommend laying a Trail to anyone who hasn’t done it before. It’s great fun watching the confusion and although you seem to be running endlessly it doesn’t seem to matter when you get back to that cosy pub, pint (or J²0) in hand and face some completely deserved abuse.

Thanks for coming along. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did :-)

Btw Shitshoveller’s gps measured the trail at 8.2 miles. Guess it’s time he got a new one…

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA C5 presented the following :-

Soon saw the bottom of this glass

Up and Coming