Hash 514 – Grove @ Swindon

I was volunteered by Kay to write this mag, and given she is our new GOM’s right hand lady, that’s just what I’m doing. (I’m referring here to our GOM being new. Kay’s surely been his right hand for ages now.)

Anyway, onto the hash mag.

A few hours earlier when Catherine asked me where I was off to today and I said ‘The Grove in the centre of Swindon’, she looked at me askance, clearly not comprehending why KVH3 would go running around the streets of Swindon when we’re in the middle of such beautiful countryside.

It’s all really quite simple. Sue was laying the trail and her sense of direction is, to put it kindly, mildly retarded. I’m not entirely sure whether she could lay a trail out in the big wide countryside and get home afterwards. However, she works really, really hard at setting these urban Swindon trails for us and we are all thoroughly grateful for this.

On this hash she’d been out on at least 13 occasions to research the route. But each time she did, it seems she couldn’t quite remember where she went the previous occasion, so in the end had to resort to leaving little clues – sticks, stones, bits of wool on branches, … These clues are not for us of course, they’re for her, so that on the morning of the hash, she has a chance of actually laying a flour trail that starts and ends at the same pub. And at 6am this morning she was doing just that, with help from Brian Reed who’d volunteered to lay a section for her. By 9am the trail was done, and Sue was back at home playing scrabble.

Later on, 10:58 to be precise, I arrived at the pub and soon after we were gathered together. As we had no newcomers, the briefing was encouragingly brief. Just some comments about ‘flour on the left’ and ‘flour on the right’ that I didn’t fully grasp. I’m not sure Alfred, Lord Tennyson would have either, given we’d apparently be going round Queen’s Park rather than into The Valley of Death.

So indeed, that’s how it progressed. A loop round Queen’s Park, a nip across Drove Road, where John and I then trotted off in entirely the wrong direction. A correction back onto the Lawns, up to Marlborough Rd, then another deviation in the wrong direction, this time with Viv.

After that I thought it best to hang back and follow, admiring the bluebells we passed, and ponder what I’d been reading in the papers recently. And what came to mind was pictures of Kim Kardashian’s bum and how it was apparently more than 50cm wide. Clearly no one on KVH3 has this attribute, for which I’m entirely grateful. By the time I came back down to earth I was trotting round Town Gardens with Keith, then it was across Old Town, back into the Lawns and soon to the Grove.

After that it was the usual post-hash chat. Keith thanked Sue, Mike explained about the next Hash in Highworth and Annie about all the parking options.

Thanks Sue – a great hash that started and ended at the same pub, lasted just over the hour and had lots a green bits in it. Thanks also to Brian Reed for helping lay it.

On On