Hashing is a wonderful thing, like a box of chocolates, you never know what you get, but you can be sure it's a chocolate. Tuesday nights hash was thus, full of surprises but it sure was a Hash.
The car park was chilly and breezy; the first post-bash hash for the ones who had managed to sober up. It was a long of six zillion with two shorter cuts, both willingly subscribed to by the more bleary eyed amongst us and those with blistered feet from too much dancing in chick footwear and those with damaged ribs from too much girl on girl action on the dance floor and those with legs the same length and those who fancied a pint before Thursday.
Off we went into the night and many hills and mud. Since it was up and down most of the time everyone warmed up. Soon after the first long short split the shorts got lost and went who knows where, meeting the longs coming the other way. (Ed’s aside. We won’t say whose fault this was, but we know who you are Tracey.)
There were plenty of on-backs to keep us all together, the evening passed in a blur, it was very muddy and hilly and when we got to the next split it was the last time the hash was together. Helen had overdone it on the dance floor with Jo on Saturday night and Jo had to quit early, escorted back by the as ever gallant David. I think the longs went via Didcot after this due to their late arrival at the boozer.
And over to the long cutters:- soon after everyone split from Jo and David, with Jo feeding many a lad’s fantasy's by caressing her strategically placed 7th rib (much like Aud had been doing on Saturday's Bash) we arrived at the top of a hill and at the first of two remaining splits. Being a lifelong advocate of science I have always felt that its laws were pretty immutable, but Sam proved physics wrong, distorting the space-time continuum and warping in extra uphill paths on the long route where none had previously existed.
He cunningly continued this all the way around the long route which included five serious and slurry coated mountains without even the merest hint of going down. By the top of the third of these, hashers were starting to fall silent, retreating into themselves and thinking longingly of the loved-ones they had left at home and they would never see again.
At the top of the fourth hill, at 9.22 precisely, Sam announced another split – saying that the longest of te long routes would take another half an hour! The maniacal light of madness gleamed forth from Helen as she bounced up and down wailing eerily “I wanna go long, I wanna go long.” Clearly she was suffering from an advanced stage of runner's dementia. So the pack split again.
Those of us who knew where we were realized that we were atop the wrong hill and would have to go down into the deep valley by Bennets End before attempting the final pitch back to the pub. But somehow Sam did it again and managed to get us to the very bottom via an uphill route.
But back to the shortcutters, was this a Surreal Hash? How can you leave and arrive back at the same spot and only climb hills? We did. Or maybe we ran fast enough to create a momentary distortion in the space/ time continuum? Not likely for the shorts, I'm afraid. So on the shorts went, Sam’s claim of a three miles hash seemed like scotch mist.
We ran, we ran on and on through lots of lovely uphill shiggy. I thought we had nearly made it, all the shorts were saying not far now, when we started going up again, up the biggest hill I have ever seen. I did not think that leafy Bucks could be entered in any rock climber's guide.
This was a hands and knees job, with frequent rests due to altitude sickness. Mike was really loving every minute and was singing Sam's praises all the way up, believe me. Back at the lovely pub all was cosy and warm again. Mick had completed his 450th run, well done.
Everyone stayed late and drank hot chocolate and Baileys and the beer and cider. Many thanks to Sam for a challenging Hash and also many thanks to Tracey for some lovely moist, firm and slurpy Christmas cake.