| Date | Hare | Scribe |
|---|---|---|
| 25 Jun 2017 | Sue | Mike |
It is always difficult to know how to begin a hashmag – the mind always casts around for the right sentence to grab the attention and fire the imagination of the reader. However such a sentence escapes me for the moment – so I won’t bother with that – I’ll just tell you what happened.
15 walkers, 7 runners (including Val’s son Chris, whom we haven’t seen for 2 years, and Phil who was a walker but today was running for the first time) and the ubiquitous 4 dogs gathered in the car park, a steady drizzle keeping us pleasantly cool. Everybody knows however that it never rains on a hash and so at precisely 11am the rain stopped and Sue gave us a very brief brief (“short 3 and a bit, long 5 and a bit, no need to show you the trail markings as we all know them – and it’s that way”).
We streamed out of the car park with Jeremy and Chris in the lead and Sue’s daughter Sarah and I at the back – into the narrow maze of streets of a modern housing estate. The trail was clearly marked at this stage but each mark was rather small. The On On’s for example were the size of two 5p pieces half an inch apart and the arrows were like a sparrow’s footprint.
When we emerged into the open fields however we couldn’t see a trail at all. Luckily, Sue was at that point keeping an eye on things and she showed us the way round the back of a football pitch and out into another huge field full of tall grass – but there we promptly lost the trail again. After trotting round in circles and peering at 
little bits of paper on the ground for a while hoping it was flour, we decided to rely on my homing instinct instead and we headed directly back to the pub.
We had been running for an hour and 15 minutes when we got back and I thought to myself ‘if it takes me that long to run the short trail it’ll be hours before the walkers get back’ – but they all strolled in about 2 minutes after us – from the opposite direction. And the runners had been back for ages saying they’d had no trouble at all finding the trail and that they had found the time to admire a heron by a lake and even watched some radio controlled car racing . I think I’ll take Keith’s advice and go to Specsavers.
We sat outside in the hot June sunshine for the après and it was lovely as always. GOM Keith is away on holiday so I acted as temporary acting local GOM and thanked Sue for her excellent and challenging (for me at least) trail and she was given a warm and enthusiastic round of applause. Well done that girl.
Sue’s always such an enthusiastic hasher (and runcher too), and I thought she laid a really interesting and well-timed trail – including green areas of Swindon I’d never walked through before. I was also very grateful that it was local, as I had to be 20 miles away by 2.30 – So thank you very much Sue on both counts! I also want to add that Mike’s prompt and affectionate mag captures the mood of this amiable and relaxing hash perfectly, too – so well done! Kx