Hash 1206

It was a pleasant evening, the forecast was dry and I was on time!  As I approached the Hit and Miss in Penn Street I thought it looked a bit too quiet for a hash gathering.  It soon dawned on me as I drove into the empty car park that I must have the wrong pub, but how had that happened?  I wasn't the only one to make this mistake either, Dan had done the same as me and looked at the hash directly below my photo on the website which had been against my hash last week.  So after a quick check I dashed down to Wooburn Green to the Queen and Albert.  I'd managed to get hold of Helen who kindly waited for me, along with Mark.  

So I can't tell you anything about the briefing!  But I can tell you that playing 'catch-up' with Helen is not pleasant.  Nothing personal, she's very lovely and we had a good natter for a few minutes… but it was actually a way to kill myself without the use of pills or rope!  And she doesn't have any sympathy when you're on your death bed… when I told her I had to slow down as my heart rate had gone up to 195 bpm she told me to 'get on with it'!  Not sure if she meant get on with running, or dying! 

We eventually caught up with Roger, our hare who was waiting for us, and subsequently made it to the rest of the troop!  Here I had to make a swift recovery before the on-on was called.  Gerry was suitably berated for his website confusion, and I told him it had nothing at all to do with my lack of attention!  Ed's aside: Yes, silly of me really to have put the next run at the top of the list , I should have known that Jo would have looked for the 24th September run three weeks down between 8th and 22nd October.  Sorry Jo, but don't worry, I made up for it this week!) It was on-on up to Wooburn Moor and round to Mill Wood, through muddy ploughed field, half of which stuck to our trainers. 

Now somewhere during the middle of the hash, I am told that Natasha did something that she has never done before, in all her years of hashing… she answered a call of nature!  She must have done it very subtly as I don't think anyone noticed!  Then a bit further on, I think it was somewhere near Burghers Hill we seemed to lose Paul.  There was much shouting and hollering for him to respond, desperate pleas from his fellow hashers who thought he may have got lost and would be all alone in the woods, never to be seen again.  I think Search and Rescue were just about to be called when he was spotted happily running along with the rest of us.  I think he'd perhaps lost his way and then managed to sneak back onto the trail so no one would notice he'd been missing and put it in the hash report!  

Past Farm Wood there was a surprisingly late-in-the-hash long/short split, at about 9.20pm as most of us starting to see hallucinations of pubs on the horizon.  Off the longs trotted over stiles, uphill through fields merrily unaware that we were in fact on the longest false trail that there ever was in the history of hashing.  It's safe to say Roger got quite a bit of stick for that, but after an about turn and on-inn to the pub we were rewarded with home made treats and sweets. 

Louise was awarded a T-shirt for 50 hashes, and Dick got his 300th run T-shirt!  Thanks to Roger for a lovely hash, apart from the not-so-lovely false, and the treats!   All in all a good night's running!