As hashers are want to do, we gathered just outside the pub, marvelling that anyone had turned up to a venue that had been changed not once but – and this is an all-time-record for the hash, twice in the past week!
The Hash had been billed as a Valentine day hash but as only two people actually turned up with hearts on them and no mention was made of it by either of the co-hares I guess the love must have run out of most people’s lives, possibly swamped by the snow and cold of the last few weeks.
We headed off to the North along the main road before turning right at the second turning. After that we went through a whole series of back roads, none of which I know where was. As the promised map didn’t quite materialise, I guess we will never know - and so the rest of this report will concentrate on the hash’s spiritual, rather than geographical, trail to our individual Nirvanas.
In my case, Nivana was the pub at the end of the evening
Having run in a vaguely anti-clockwise direction down numerous dangerously icy roads with, as far as I am aware, only one moosing casualty, we ran on down some more dangerously icy roads. The dread fear was raised that the dastardly hares had set the run from a car, but as we soon heard of Lesley’s singular devotion, not to mention run, setting it earlier in the day, this fear was laid to rest.
As to who was the icy moose – well I leave you to speculate, partly because I believe in the anonymity of the moosee, but mainly ‘cos I have forgotten.
The highlight of the evening for those of us in the vanguard of the hash, was a warning of a “special surprise” at the bottom of a particularly treacherous hill. It turned out to be a flood! There was no way around other than hashing through a local vegetable (and very private looking) garden. So, many of the hardier hashers girded loins and went for it. It was icy cold and came about an inch over the top of the trainers. What with the joyous splashing of revelling hashers trying to get to the other side before their feet turned to ice, we were soaked and frozen - and then had to wait at the other end for a regroup.
Helen, however, stood out (which must be hard for someone of her height), but like Napoleon she summed up the situation precisely with her keen brain before, again like Napoleon at Waterloo, calling up her trusty war-horse. Napoleon rode the mighty Marengo, Helen, somewhat more pragmatically chose Dick to give her a piggyback through the flood.
However, Lesley played her Wellington card, having devised a battle-winning strategy of asking the home owner - and gaining permission for the hash to run through his garden! With Lesley’s shrieks of laughter at us poor schmucks who had taken the moral high ground (albeit the wetter low-ground) ringing through the night we ran on to the next check, where we thankfully left the roads for the less slippery, if somewhat muddier tracks that led us into the maze of the Beeches.
At some point on the hash the short-cutters split, with the GM leading them in. Numerous on-backs later I recognised that we were on Egypt lane (and another on-back up the hill) before making an eventual left turn on-inn to the pub.
The pub showered us with an excellent array of free chips and sandwiches while the GM made a depressing speech about changing passwords as some deviate had hacked into his e.mails, which cast somewhat of a shadow over an otherwise fine evening.