Hash 1012

Listening to the party leaders debate a couple of nights after this hash, I was disappointed that none of them mentioned what has now become a key election issue for me: the need to raise the retirement age to 90. Unless this measure is brought in on Day One of the next government, and ideally made retrospective to just before Easter, us hashers will have a lot of running to do. Clearly Gypsy Mick now has far too much time on his hands, and he seemed to have spent most of it setting a ridiculously long hash (ed's aside, I clocked 7.1 Miles).

But to begin at the beginning - and this was the beginning, as distinct from the end, which was somewhere else altogether - Dashwood Dick & I rolled up at the Three Horseshoes, and having niftily blocked in Chocaholic Mike, we disembarked and togged up whilst earwigging a bit of a conflab involving a member of the hostelry's staff team and our beloved GM. Never did find out *exactly* what the problem was, but Mein Host was none too amused.

Disregarding this, off we trotted towards the roar of the Marlow Bypass (built 1972, apparently. Who knew?) I seemed to get lucky (calm down Roger, not in that sense) at the first few checks and soon found myself with Sooper Cooper descending an extremely steep hill. As expected, a number had been floured at the base, so it was back to the apex.

I should at this point apologise to anyone who is expecting this report to accurately record our precise route - I failed to buttonhole Mad Mick post-run, so don't have a handy snippet of OS to refer to. The following are a series of key moments:

- about 15 minutes in it was announced that, in light of the aforementioned contretemps with the publican, we would be snubbing his establishment and decamping en masse to the Blacksmiths Arms further up the road.

- there was a touching re-enactment of the famous 'eyelid' scene from Brief Encounter, with Jo playing the part made so famous by Celia Johnson.

- Towards the end, having to clamber across what seemed to be the remains of a building that had been demolished, climb over a gate, through a patch of nettles, and venture deep into the Hundred Acre Wood, all in order to reconnect with the trail.

- as we finally lumbered back into the car park, Sam announcing he'd clocked over 8 miles; this on a hash that was allegedly 'a touch over 6'. Hmmm.

As instructed, we saddled up pronto and high-tailed it up to the Blacksmiths. I was disappointed on entering not to be asked "Have you been to a Harvester before?", then further disappointed at the choice of beers; having abandoned the Rebellion Brewery's flagship boozer, we had ended up in a real ale desert. Was this a price worth paying? I think not. Time to chip in and get the GM on an anger management course...