This week’s offering began with a game of ‘tetris’ as parking spaces were limited, each coloured arrival was duly ushered into the most available space. Only Ade with the ‘little tiddler’ seemed to have trouble lining it up! The pub is set in a picture post card location which is no wonder Matt chose here to set his first run. It is also ‘residential’ a blow well below the belt to hashers as the bar closed at 10!!!!!!!!!
The ‘Rising Sun’ 4.02am and ‘Setting Sun’ 20.24pm was making life difficult for the GM as he now needed to force the pace or send the runners home beer-less (un thinkable). A new virgin hasher called Phillip was scooped into the pack and off we descended into the woods. The pace was relaxed so I was able to catch up with Helen and admire her tan. Chris who was also on the same holiday didn’t have the bronzed sheen but he insisted that his lasted for 6 months…. where did he dream that one up?
In the woods the entire pack was cunningly fooled by not 1 but 2 false trails.
The gradient suddenly turned nasty but it was the only hill of an otherwise flatish run (Ed's aside: Flatish? !*!!*! ) and the view was worth the effort. A road at the top took us past the 12 century Dunsmore church through Hampdenleaf Wood and finally to a re-group at a crossroads and again a little further on where the South Bucks way joins. This is the point where the GM sent both the ‘longs’ and ‘shorts’ down one side of the fence and back up the other side as he needed a few minutes break away to add in the long loop in the form of a ‘live’ hash. My part in the deceit was to steward (Ed’s aside: I wonder if the Blonde enjoyed “Stewing”?).
I believe the chase through Cockshoots wood sent the runners back by a couple of 5 backs (Ed’s aside, a couple must have been re-defined without telling us as in now means “Over five plus a regroup”) leaving the hare with an empty blobber but ahead of the game. The shorts on the other hand despite 700 million runs between them missed their check. Mad Mike in the sexy green shorts and Aud were guilty of following the arrows against them all the way back to the pub. The GM reckons they ran a quarter distance longer than the longs! Thank you Jane and Steve for helping Cassie in her hour of need as she had to limp back on 3 legs. Despite all manner of investigation we could not work out what had caused her paw to be so painful. To see our FRB canine struggle just didn’t seem right.
Back at the pub the publican did a splendid job of pouring the pints in record time. A record too for Dan who was awarded his “T” for 50 runs. Good to see Mark (B) and Peter (C) back in the fold along with the chips and chocolate to celebrate Aud’s birthday. Thanks to benchbreaker for a picture post card run to match the setting.
Ed's Aside: last time Rose was at the pub she met a huge foreign articulated lorry winding slowly up the tiny winding road to the pub. He stopped, leant out of the window from on-high, checked his GPS and asked if "Iis really the way to Littlehampton?"