It's a bit unusual, at my time of life, to realise for the first time that I am a serial masochist – but as I drove towards the Hash at Downley with pleasant feelings of anticipation, I came to the understanding that it must be true.
Another Tuesday evening had arrived and a whole bunch of fellow masochists congregated in the car park of the De Le Spencer Arms preparing for the evenings entertainment. In many ways things were the same as last week – Helen & Jo were in their usual frenetic huddle of conversation, Aud was greeting the men in her clique with her usual cuddle and I arrived late with screaming tyres bringing me to a stop in the over-full carpark.
The pre-hash banter was jolly and I overheard one hasher (who should have known better) saying “A Polar bear walks into a restaurant and says to the waiter, "I'll have a seal steak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and a side order of lemmings." The waiter says...."What's with the big pause?" The bear replies, "I don't know... but my father had them, too!"
That wouldn't have been too bad by itself but he followed it up with the question “How do you hire a teddy bear? - put him on stilts!”
Tonight's ringmaster was Dick who told us that surprisingly for a pub perched on the very crest of the highest hill for miles, that it was going to be a reasonably flat route. As usual we believed him, and as usual the hare lied and there was hardly a hill, hillock or even grassy knoll in the vicinity that we hadn't ascended by the time the night was through.
It was a delightfully balmy (or do I mean barmy?) evening as we set off but, unfortunately I don't have a map and the route entirely escaped me.
We set off thinking how pleasant it was to be running in daylight again and soon we arrived at the inevitable downhill. As usual the FRB's led the way to the first back-check and dashed back to find the SCB's chatting amiably towards the rear. Unusually this wasn't the case for all of the run as some of them, obviously in training, ran a bit of a blinder and even joined us long-cutters on the long route once we had split. They may have regretted it, however, when we came to the multitude of hills that, the hare had told us, were not to be found on the run.
Helen did her usual trick of zooming everywhere at breakneck speed, at the same time as chatting with at least half the hash on her way around. I did hear a rumour of a moose but as I didn't see it I guess we shall never know who it was.
Many hills later we arrived back in the pub and, by the time I got to the bar the line of hashers waiting for a drink was actually out of the door (Why, oh, why does this pub consistently get it wrong and why do they have the prickly ability to put people's back up, it could be such an idyllic pub in one of the best positions in the Chilterns). Anyway, deciding I didn't want to queue I sat down and waited for nearly half an hour before they decided to bring out a second person to serve. If brains were food, the manager would go hungry.
But that aside it was a thoroughly pleasant evening and another excellent Hash.