Hash 482 – Pelican @ Froxfield

I’m going to title this hash as ‘The one in between‘. We had storm Henry on Saturday and we have ferocious storm Imogen coming in on Monday; and as we know the female of the species is more ferocious than the male, we’d better keep our heads down. Amazingly though, we were fortunately between the two storms and had quiet weather on the day’s hash.

After heavy rain early morning, and with the threat of rain forecast during the hash, most of us donned our waterproofs. But how wrong we were; the skies cleared and we had brilliant sunshine. “It never rains on a Hash” coming true once again.

At the start it’s now a tradition for the hare to blow “Colin’s horn”. So Jeremy blew and blew, but no recognisable note came out. After several tries with little improvement, Jeremy gave up-saying he didn’t have a problem at home!

In his pre-hash briefing, Jeremy told us that the only hazards were crossing the rail line, and that the trail was a lot wetter than when he had first checked out the route. We were at this stage getting a bit concerned as he was wearing welly boots and the tide water mark was just below the tops.

So without the ringing tones of the horn in our ears, we set off over the rail and canal bridges onto the tow path. Unfortunately, being at the front at this stage I encountered all the fishermen’s extended poles across the pathway, which almost turned the run into a hurdle race. After crossing the railway again the route took us over fields, some of which were recently ploughed and very claggy. We saw lots of snowdrops, catkins and several deer. On the Great Bedwyn Estate we passed a warning notice indicating that culling of deer was in progress. In my book that sounds like a hazard, with the possibility of high velocity bullets in the vicinity, but no shooting was heard. According to Jeremy that’s just the locals wanting to keep the area to themselves and dissuade walkers.

The wettest part of the route was a track through the woods which was extremely slippery, more suited to a four wheel drive Land Rover. In the final mile we ran down a hill and turned right along a track parallel to the rail line. This I recognised as the start of the last hash from the Pelican. That hash finished near a cottage and then across the bridge to the pub. That last time I was on my own, not spotting any signs and with tiredness, a mild panic set in and I started on the route again – by the time I arrived back at the Pelican, most people were on their second pint.

After a few refreshments, GOM thanked Jeremy for a super Hash. The blue shorts ended up with Annie and Mike because they arrived too late to participate in the mud of the hash, so a penalty was incurred. Di donated the pink shorts, jointly to Viv and John, saying they should have a handicap as they always seemed to be out in front and were the quickest home, and that they had a distinct weight advantage – adding that Viv and John run just like gazelles. Kathy discounted my momentary elation by saying that ‘John was nothing like a gazelle’ – so there we are.

Many thanks again to Jeremy for a splendid Hash.