Hash 528 – Sun @ Lydiard Millicent

A little over ten years ago a chap called Mad Mike Fisher ran on the hash from the Sun at Lydiard Millicent, acted as GOM and wrote the mag. Yesterday the same chap (now more politely called Mike) ran on the Hash from the Sun at Lydiard Millicent, acted as Gom and is writing this mag. Not that that is remotely interesting to anyone but MMF of course – so on with the mag.

It was Remembrance Sunday and about twenty of us stood in a circle in the pub car park heads bowed in two minutes silence save only for the elegiac sound of Lydiard Church clock striking the eleventh hour. Then the mood changed from sombre reflection to cheerful anticipation and as the sun came out Sue, our hare, told us all about the mud we could look forward to and the problems she’d had in getting the trail just right (we learned later that she’d been up at 6.30 and been flat out laying and re-laying the trail ever since). And then we were off down The Street towards Lydiard Park with Caroline and me in the lead. I thought at first we were going to be the only runners but as everyone streamed out of the car park John and Viv and David arrived (10 minutes late!) in a flurry and it did not take them long to catch us up.

Sue was right about the mud. We turned off the road into a large and very muddy field which rapidly turned into a bog and for some reason which escapes me all the runners lost the trail completely (even though the arrows were plentiful and each arrow was about four feet long and three across) and we spent some time sloshing about in the mud until David spotted the walkers in the distance – who were on the correct trail – and we galloped across to join them. There the runners were joined by Ainslie who ran the short trail with me.

A bit later Adam joined us on the short trail – speeding along like a race-walker – we had a job to keep up with him. A lovely trail through Lydiard Park and through woodland in bright sunshine and on to the aforesaid Lydiard Church and then back down the Street to the pub in just over the hour and more or less together – apart from Kevin and family who like to walk the long trail.

The Sun Inn is a proper pub. It has an excellent range of beers, has no background noise and all those people who want to eat are tucked away out of sight. It is an ideal hashers pub and I wondered why we don’t run from there more frequently. We took full advantage of it – sitting together in a large noisy group chatting and laughing until about 2 o’clock. We haven’t seen the hash horn or the bags for some time now and so I just thanked Sue for her sterling efforts and for setting us a lovely trail and she was given a genuinely warm round of applause