The weather conditions, overcast, dry, mighty cold wind and the terrain looks lovely and flat. Are we really still in Buckinghamshire I ask myself?
I am distracted at the start as we are all gathered round by Tom modelling a head torch round his private parts. The strap was right up his butt crack like a 1.5v AAA G-String!!! Very fetching! Does the touch glow brighter under certain circumstances?
The hash took us down a track at the side of the pub. We came to a check, turned left and over the river. The next check took us right along the side of the river (the flattest bit of Buckinghamshire I have ever seen in my life) across a field to the road. This is where Kerry thought my husband Steve was called Mark who tripped and didn’t bother sending a postcard when falling over Megan the hashing Border Terrier!
This is where the long short split was. The long cutters hacked it round Dorney Reach past Monkey Island. Within seconds Ade had been run-into by a bicyclist who seemed to think he could weave his way through the pack. Despite the torrent of invective there was fortunately little damage and all were soon back on the trail. Unfortunately most of the flour had been kindly cleaned up by local residents, including the outline of a sword the hare had drawn over the burial place of a genuine Bronze Age one that had been found there somewhat earlier.
Us SCB’s trotted along the road following Mike with the map. Is this wise? We turned right just past Elm View Farm into a very posh establishment called Dorney College Rowing Ctr. Springing along on their beautifully mown grass. Then swiftly after that we take a left turn. We were very confused when presented with two options, both straight on. Anyway we did a semi-sprint up here to then realise we were now inventing our own hash at this point. Either that or the flour was invisible! (thanks again to the clean-minded residents). We were getting a wriggle on round the back of the Dorney Lake looking vaguely like professional runners don’t you know! However now realising in fact the flour wasn’t invisible, but we were on the wrong path and ungifted in map reading.
Finally we did a left turn and headed over Dorney Common. Again very flat, but very rutted under foot. Ankle busting stuff! We came across a road and went straight over, but then headed across the rest of the common in totally the wrong direction. We turned round and caught a glimpse of the supremely fit LCB’s catching us up like a beautiful night light procession. Then all of a sudden the gap got wider again. Had we gone the wrong way again? Remember our dodgy map reader, and as the LCB had Gerry with them, we must have cocked it up! We had a nice long detour. Fell up a hill on the common that was a massive 4 ft high. Needless to say we got altitude sickness and had to be rushed back down the other side, not before pushing a Union Jack flag in the top of it! Still going across Dorney Common I could see the Mars factory in the distance. We were hallucinating Mars Bars now. Must be very bad altitude sickness indeed.
We finally came to a road and a village sign post for Eton Wick. Some short cut this turned out to be! We then followed a small river/stream thing, up abit of a hill and down to the side of the Jubilee River. We could now see the LCB and knew for sure we went completely wrong. We were hoping for an easy trot round tonight! So now the pack is all back together we got on with the very important task of Frog rescue. Mike was putting the frogs back on the bank side of the path when I really think the river is where the poor little things wanted to be.
Anyway I must say this has been a very flat, fast, shiggy free hash. Very enjoyable. Any to top it all off, just when we thought we were seeing UFO’s ahead - it was the light from the boot of Gerry’s car loaded up with cakes and drinks. Top man!
Happy Birthday Gerry. Nice YumYums!
Back to the Pineapple for the all important beer!
Feedback on the long route was minimal; except Jo was like me badly distracted by Tom’s glowing man bits. The torch round the man region. Why? Won’t that cut off the blood supply?