| Date | Hare | Scribe |
|---|---|---|
| 15 Dec 2013 | John & Viv | Keith |
The day seemed to start bright and clear, just a gentle breeze and the promise of some rain later in the day sweeping in from the southwest. On this premise, Kay agreed to come on today’s hash. I picked her up at 1040, a stiffer breeze now evident and cloud enveloping what had earlier been wintry blue sky.
No matter, we knew the rain wasn’t due till much later and once again “it never rains on a hash” would hold true. We assembled in The Angel car park, our hares very keen to establish a ‘new regime’ (Viv’s words) of getting us off at 1100 instead of 1110 , 1115 etc which seems to have become the norm these days. A new regime with which I wholly approve I might add!
Kay emerged from the car sporting the latest fashion ‘must have’ for the hasher of today – the peach coloured hash shorts, worn over black jeans, with clashing shades of pink and purple atop, to set the whole ensemble off. Should you want to achieve the ‘look’ for yourself, I include a photo of Kay modelling the attire for you. I can assure you all that the hand gesture is nothing rude (on this occasion anyway).
As we assembled, in various parts of the car park, I attempted to coral everyone in the vicinity of our hares, as per ‘new regime’, but this is like herding cats. Eventually though, we did form a circle whilst Viv explained the three trails; short 3 miles, medium 4-ish and the long 5-ish. Then the bombshell. Our hares were doing a runner before we’d even set off. Sacre Bleu! John assured us we should not get lost as there was “plenty of flour” and this reminds me of the best hashing quip I have heard from our absent (on the day) GOM, Brian, who art thou in Egypt. It’s this:
Hasher to Brian “I hope there’s plenty of flour on this trail, Brian”
Brian to Hasher ” There’s so much flour, even Stevie Wonder wouldn’t get lost”
Excellent. More !
By way of reassurance, Viv told us we would venture no further than a quarter mile from Purton and “if you do get lost just head in a straight line back to Purton”. Now this seemed to weaken somewhat John’s confident assertion that we would not get lost in the boggy fields around us. John and Viv were heading off somewhere, no doubt their mobiles turned off and fingers crossed that all would be well back in Purton.
And so the trail. The blue sky had given way to a blanket of gray and in turn to a fine drizzle that descended as we ran in loops around Purton through fields and tracks which were pleasantly tree-lined in places.
The flour was, as promised, sufficient to keep us on trail and wasn’t obliterated by the drizzle that progressed into proper rain, making liars of anyone who says “it never rains on a hash”. Some of us chose the medium trail because of the rain, though the Dingle Marathon runners managed the Long in less time than we could do the medium, but you knew that anyway, yes?
Rumour has it that some Hashers today managed to make the short trail even shorter by taking a short cut. You know who you are….
In the pub, we dried out, warmed up and clapped our absent hares for another splendid trail which was really not so bad that our Hares needed to make themselves scarce at the off. Our thanks to John and Viv!