Hash 536 – Inn with the Well @ Ogbourne St George

I was really looking forward to this hash, not only because snow had deprived us of David’s trail at the Freke Arms a fortnight ago, and after a hashless month I was beginning to get withdrawal symptoms, but because Maurice was to be our hare. He’s getting quite good at the practicalities of trail-laying these days and he always gives his trails an imaginative/bit of fun touch.

A lot of people felt as I did and at 1055 the small area outside the pub was packed. Maurice gave a quick briefing – “the long hill up is a muddy hell and the long hill down is worse. The long is 6ish miles and the short is 3.5ish, pause 3.9ish, pause 4.7ish” – so we all knew exactly how far we had to run/walk and at 1100 on the dot we were off.

The sun came out as we climbed steadily up to the Ridgeway and all around us were the signs of Spring – perfick!

Your scribe has now joined the walkers (knee pain) who are a rapidly increasing part of our hash – there were only 4 or 5 runners today and about 20 walkers – and we chatted and admired the view as we finally reached the Ridgeway and where we met Maurice and his amazing mag-writing dog. He was there because last time he laid a trail there everyone missed the double dot and left out the most interesting bit of his trail– so he made sure we went in the right direction. This took us through a prehistoric wood where nobody had ever been before and where there were no footpaths. All we had to guide us was the occasional dob of flour until we emerged onto a broad track leading us back up to the Ridgeway. There we found an arrow pointing into the dark wood where we found a fairy circle dotted with little Easter eggs. There was then a nice moment as we stood chatting and eating chocolate.

On up to the Ridgeway and then, because some dozy sod had scuffed out the trail, we had a bit of difficulty finding the way back to Ogbourne St George. Maurice however was still keeping an eye on us and the walkers got back to the pub in just over two hours – the runners getting back just before us.

The après was good as always . The bar was quite small and we filled it completely apart from people sitting on stools at the bar eating their lunch– completely blocking it and effectively making it extremely difficult for anybody else to get a drink (sadly more and more common now as pubs turn into restaurants). GOM thanked Maurice for a fascinating, if long, trail and John awarded the bags to Brian for a reason which escapes me. My thanks too to Maurice – I enjoyed it hugely.

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We made the local news – courtesy of Mike