Hash 1288

I picked up last week's trash, ignored the date of 6th April and headed for Saunderton thinking that it was brave of Aaron, having no hash name as yet, to choose a pub with a name like Golden Balls. Knowing that IGSH is not a Specsavers man it was unsurprising to discover that we were actually running from the Golden Cross on 7th April. Apart from those minor points the weather was fine and the turnout was likewise.

Virtuoso performances were naturally expected from two hares with such formidable reputations (3 if you count Poppy). Speaking of which there was a short canine altercation, quickly smothered in mother's love.

Helles announced that the long was probably under 6 and the short under 4. Lack of accuracy (blamed on the user last week) was this time due to blue screens of death or some other M$ kind of issue that had eaten the map.

We headed out across the road past Mike Clare's back entrance [sic] up Smalldean Lane and into the fields. Up the hill we continued towards Bradenham Wood, zig-zagging across the contours of this non-existent map.

With exception of a still incapacitated Ant the front runners, especially Izzy were making good headway as we zigged up and up. Happily, the light was now sufficient to allow the back markers to enjoy the view - which of course we did.

Was this really a live hash? The hare was running at the front and dispensing a lot of flour. The excuse of having set the hash the previous day wore a little thin when Alan appeared to get an extra on-back just after he had powered past Helles on a steep bit.

Our renowned hare was clearly getting nervous. The electric vehicle people call this “range anxiety”. Helles personal batteries were not about to run flat. However, she had assessed our timely return to the pub to be unlikely due to those slackers at the back who were chatting and admiring the view. Well what are we supposed to do when there are nice wooden seats strategically positioned for the purpose?

Mrs Keats adopted her best headmistress tone; “Run, run, stop walking!”. I leave it to the reader to guess our reaction. Short cuts provided a solution so we were directed onto segments of the short trail that cut out several loops of the long route.

Near Bradenham village a short-cut suggestion from the hare resulted in a decision by 5 of us to go “medium”. The longs would catch us up. Well, they never did as we came up with a nice, flat short cut along the road.

Mediums arrived back at 9:15 just after the shorts and just before the longs. It's so reassuring when everything in the world is in proper alignment. Shorts reported deep satisfaction with their hare and the course, MC being absent this week. 'Nuff said about the longs' hare.

In the pub we enjoyed Golden Lion and Butcombe bitters, an in-house dog bowl and a veritable mountain of chips. It's likely that this pub, possibly the chippiest ever, will score well if anyone can figure out how to enter scores on the hashalator.

The trash confirmed once again (“probably the Royal Huntsman” etc) that IGSH's spare hash name could be “cut and paste”). It also confirmed that it's entirely optional to write anything about the hash in the trash. In part compensation GM mentioned the scary geezer and awarded Nikki the Tosca for her reaction and your scribe announced that there were at least 3 (very cute) black lambs left by the following weekend; those who skipped last week gave blank looks.