Hash 1454

"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here."

So it was that, on May Day, that maddest day of the year when students jump off bridges in ball gowns and men in funny hats knock their sticks together round maypoles...so it was that we all congregated here, at The Mayflower (spooky eh?!) for a run set by Budgie and Pink Panter [note: these are not characters from Alice in Wonderland.]

Things got even stranger when Barney handed me over a wodge of money in the car park - not the bribe for writing his run report (although I may have to put my prices up now), but some hash cash for the upcoming HWH3 parkrun takeover on 19th May....which I may have mentioned once or twice before....?!

Without Roger's dulcet tones...oh look, we were off roughly on time..and the evening proceeded to continue in this topsy-turvy fashion; just after the first check in Common Wood, the longs went wrong with the result that:

• Mick was caught checking,
• Aud performed an on-back,
• Ken went the wrong way.

At this point, I wouldn't have been at all surprised to have seen a huge Cheshire Cat grinning up in the tree... it was turning into that sort of a night.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."
"I don't much care where –"
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go.” 

After a shambling regroup, we loped off through Penn Woods, lost the shorts at some point, and somewhere near Mop End, stopped for a Medium/Long split...but not before Paul had tumbled down a seriously large rabbit hole “Curiouser and curiouser!”

Budgie then announced a 5.5 mile option with chips or a 7 mile option without chips, (since the kitchens would be closing at 9pm sharp). So, the hash split in half as the prospective potato munchers cut back via Penn House and the Mad Hatters headed off somewhere into the wild blue yonder. Or dark blue - it was getting rather dark by now.

“If you don't know where you are going any road can take you there” 

...which is easier said than done when you're bumbling around in Common Woods for a second time. Budgie was less than reassuring - "There might be flour...there again there might not be..." Still, we managed to zig zag our way back to the pub, just in time for LCO (Last Chip Orders)...oh, how we chortled that the Longs would be bereft when they eventually staggered in.

“If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.” 

...luckily, back at the pub, everybody was minding their own business and without Roger to disrupt proceedings, people chatted happily and munched away on the generous helpings of chips and onion rings (including the Longs who probably got the biggest helpings after all!)

“Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense.” 

The topsy-turvy events were not done with yet though...there was still the sight of Mike, taking a pause from eating, unlocking his manbag, and paying both his own AND Judy's subs as well...and, it is even rumoured that he was at the bar ahead of Judy buying drinks!

So, in the spirit of this rather quirky day, let me leave the last words to Lewis Carroll:

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” 

The end.