One look at the weather was enough for me. It was Mad, Mad, and Mad again, for anyone to leave their log fire on such a night. Minus 4, - sleet turning to snow, - the M40 closed - and 5 brass monkeys in the car park looking for an ambulance.
Madness clearly abounded with the Hash though, - and 3 mentally retarded runners turned up in the car park in shorts and with bare legs!
A teeth chattering briefing from the hare, interrupted by a why ‘are you two late?’ chorus to Helen and Jo, a dive into the bar by the Blonde, and we were off up and under the railway bridge to the snow capped peaks.
The scribe who, quiet as ever, didn’t complain once, - was all for running the whole way but decided after a mile to go back to the warmth of the pub, - but only because Cassie was cold, you understand.
Likewise, Natasha decided that Oscar needed feeding and the warmth of the pub was the only place he liked his food. So the only two sensible people on the whole Hash decided, in the interests of their canine friends, that they didn’t want a visit from the RSPCA and decided to stagger back to the pub. The two resembled Good King Wenceslas and his Page on the Feast of Stephen.
God only knows where the mad pack went that night. The GM had already made an executive decision to summon the Bledlow Ridge Search and Rescue Party, - the Landlord was poised, phone in hand, to make the call, when the ‘shorts’ turned up at 9.15 and the ‘longs’ arrived at 9.40. Jeezus, ‘what were you idiots doing out there’ we wondered, - now on our 3rd pint.
This next bit, written by Gerry, shows in the first 4 words of his recollections, how the human brain is affected under extreme conditions.
Gerry writes,
‘It was Snow fun’. (Fun?). He goes on, ‘Actually the conditions were so bad it became quite funny and people really enjoyed it’. (Really?)
‘There was the usual collection of vicious hills, including one where the Hare sent the long cutters way down a long steep road into a valley, followed by a very sharp left and an even steeper climb back up to the top of the same hill – the hare and the short cutters just strolled the few yards in between’.
‘We ran all the way to the Golden Ball – with half of the path several inches deep in snow, and the rest flooded. Several of the mini-lakes were 30 to 40 feet across with a very stiff, tricky and icy clamber required to get around the banks! Helen asked for a piggy back across the biggest of them and Dick came nobly / foolishly (delete as appropriate) to her rescue. They nearly fell in when the pair of them slid down the bank towards the water, but he only got one foot wet. Lots of comments about what fun it was being between Helens legs’. (See what I mean, if it takes minus 4 degrees on Mount Everest and an icy stream to get sexually turned on, what hope have the Hash to procreate?)
‘A few of the other things that happened, (I bet they did!), - Moose moosed twice – once right into a cross between a lake and a big and very muddy puddle. He rolled gently into it then lay there for a few seconds half submerged. The snow was blinding. Five minutes later he moosed again, cleverly missing a puddle and landing in a snowdrift.’ (Enough said!)
‘Dick snowballed Jo, Helen retaliated but eventually had to retreat, running away and squealing for help as he collected a bigger snowball’. (He has, - I’ve seen him in the shower!)
‘Jo started sniffing at one of the stops and produced a bogie icicle - it was over an inch an a half long! – which she then sniffed back with a grin on her face. Ugh. Even Helen said some things went beyond friendship’. (Jo was probably in the throes of frost bitten induced dementia by then).
‘At the golden ball we looped round through the woods with much shaking of trees to bring snow down on following runners. The snow was in blizzard conditions all of the way round, so the relatively calm wood made a welcome relief’.
At a bit past 9.30, with well over a mile to go, the decision was taken to take the easy most sheltered way back. (The Hare was clearly a babbling idiot, - you should all have done another 2 miles). This unfortunately meant we had to run through all of the flooding again! There were innumerable impromptu re-groups and numerous near-mooses in the slippery conditions with the snow covering multiple traps. Lenore, Matt and Roz kept lagging behind, (what were Matt and Roz up to back there in the dark?) but there was lots of good humour. (I think that there needed to be!)
Gerry ends his epistle here. - Thank you.
So it’s off to the asylum for all of you.
Finally,
- Well done Simon for laying the trail, and for
- Showing the highest Scott of the Antarctic leadership qualities in atrocious conditions.