Run 1133

Sunday 3 February 2013

The Red Lion, Milton Bryan

Hares: Fat Controller & Kisses Anytime

HASHERS: 23  ANKLE BITERS: 1  MUTTS: 2

Gabriel's Horn!

When things go wrong it is hard to understand that there always follows a blue sky! I forgot this tenet on Sunday.

Setting a 'live run' is both nerve-racking and exciting. So, dear reader, I can only write this trash without mentioning any misdemeanours to name and shame as is normal practice. And so it was as I set off across the water sodden bridle paths and ploughed fields to pick up and then alter the trail laid the previous day, leaving Kisses Anytime to herd the pack from Eversholt to the new On - On at Milton Bryan.

Fortunately, trail was intact except for a few snuffled out marks here and there, and a HOC and marks vandalised by one of those ever so friendly, ignorant minority who purport to be farmers. I looked at my watch, I was making good time with what I estimated to be about a half hour lead on you lot, so forging on I was suddenly confronted by the sight of 5-Baaah and mutt coming towards me wrong way from Rads End! "I was late and got to the Green Man at quarter past eleven. There was nobody there, and no arrows, so I picked up some marks and carried on." came his reply to my astonished question. Leaving him with instruction not to say he'd met me, he headed off (who said 'head'?!) towards the woods.

Whilst setting a new return leg of the trail back to the woods I heard the sound of Gabriel's Horn ringing loud and clear from the near distance rent the bucolic midday silence that was being regularly rent by shotgun and bird-scarer shots! From the shouts of 'On', you lot were drawing close to the HOC where I had cunningly planned for the out trail to cross the new in trail. Shall I meet up with them, or chance getting caught on the way back? I decided the former, as the latter is truly a cardinal hash sin worth many down - downs as penance. Lurking in the bushes with a supermarket carrier bag in hand, I must have looked like an escaped lunatic to the couple out walking their dogs who were gingerly approaching me. The bloke tried to accuse me of being the cause of that 'Blue Tongue' outbreak a few years ago. (Hmmm? It happened to me in Kent too!)

And so, back to the plot dear reader! Crouching back in the bushes, I waited for you lot to pass me. A few minutes later, still no sight or sound? I emerged from my concealment and to my chilled disappointment, I saw you lot in the far distance, disappearing on - back into the woods! Out of earshot and patience, feeling dejected I headed (who said 'head' again!) back.

Now, Gabriel's Horn is either a harbinger of resurrection or a geometrical figure of infinite surface area, but finite volume. Back in the car park I found to my good fortune that it was the former, as to contemplating the latter would have made me even crazier.

My resurrection continued with kind words and geniality in the warmth of the bar; even the shiggy covered hash ankle biter Skippy looked contented and not at all phased by the arduous sodden trail! In the 'Circle' Capt. F's very long winded non-xenophobic joke made us all have a good chuckle, then Kisses and I were called into the Circle for our down-downs, and to my unexpected joy my resurrection was completed by Depth Charge awarding me with my 50th Run mug!

ON - ON! To infirmity and beyond! [and perhaps a RED DRESS RUN at offley ... scribe]
Fat Controller.

Posterity may care to know what became of the rest of The Hash that day. Twenty Two of us wandered around the countryside ankle deep in freezing shiggy, trying to work out what an X would have meant had we been in Blessed Kent, watching The Frau squeal as she bounced up and down on Rapid's pole, ignored Forking's offer to join him in his penthouse suite, wondering why 5 Baaah was even more reticent than usual, working out the best way to keep the run under an hour and a half, looking for the flippin' Beer Stop and generally cursing FC and the Green Man at Eversholt ... scribe