Hash 1272

A run of great intrigue: lots of grumpy Santas; a few tired Reindeer not wanting to do so much before their busy night; at least one Goblin; and lots of hidden Tinsel (I had been handed some to hide personally), why one might ask?

Those that turned up met as usual in the car park including two new faces who had seen us on the telly, probably now wondering if we always run so attired (they missed out on the lovely experience of being called out and named as virgins). The Dawsons had made a combined effort to set the hash. Santa who appeared to have gone on a massive weight loss diet and was looking much lighter, had sent his top Elf to lay the flour. The distances, of '3 and a bit' and '5 and a bit' were announced, laid mainly on the right as per usual, but the on-backs had a variation, if the letter related to your fancy dress it was for you, anyone not in fancy dress was to do all of them!

So far so good. The on was called and checked and we were off. The first Santa back was greeted with mirth and merriment, the next check was called and dutifully arrowed, the significance of this particular arrow will be mentioned later.

Calls like what is an A for? There are no apples! Must be Antlers, making all the Rudolphs gallop back from whence they had come. A was actually Angels, but our Angel had swapped roles for his Santa suit this night. The Re which was more obviously Reindeer had them repeating their steps again, a little less gleefully. Mumbles of that looks like a 5 not an S, I'm not going back again! and I'm dressed as a Goblin I'm only going back on G's, What relief was felt when the on-backs ended shortly after the long short split

The down side to this was the blobs had also disappeared, or had they? This is the intrigue I alluded to. Being scribe I have the maps and I have the GPS logged trail which we ran. The Hare leading us, occasionally calling it on, grumbled that his Elf had gone off the route with the setting. This could have been true, but we definitely went off the mapped route running! But we also found flour! One particular junction was called on both ways. Hawkeye was the obvious choice for the deciding vote. His sage words "looking at the lie of the land it must be right" had the whole pack head off left (I think Hawkeye was feeling a bit bummed about the cracks made at him in the last trash).

The flour got progressively easier to follow, the time and miles ticked by and we were soon running the BIT after 5 miles. So much so at 9.30 the pack was stretching out in their thirst, and blindly followed the arrow laid so much earlier in the evening. Luckily I arrived at this point with the hare who laid a second arrow. Two arrows in different directions clarity any harsher is sure to understand.

Distances ranged from 7.3 to 9.8 miles (Hells of a long way) but all had the energy to clamber through the band and the audience, and tuck into the chips. I think Sooper was checking the hashaltor to see if it was a record breaker. Many thanks to Ant and Sarah for another good hash and the opportunity to burn off lots of pre Christmas calories.