Run No. 1328 21sth March 2010
Venue: The Fairway Tavern
Beer: Black Sheep, Courage Best, Directors
Location: Panshanger Welwyn Garden City
Hares: My Lil’ Sperm ‘ead
Runners: 16
Virgins: 0
Visitors: 20 Hare & Hounds
Newies: 0
Hounds: 2
Après Hashers: 1
Total: 38
Membership: Fore?
The RAs had weaved their magic for the third week on the trot as it was a glorious day for a Run, for the second week it was a joint Run with the Hare & Hounds Hash. Somehow the Pack managed to park all over the place in the large car park, Sparky arrived in his old Fiesta & seemed to be confused as to where to park up going back & forth more times than Psycho does!
The Herts RA had spotted Sparky 10 minutes earlier, when he pulled on to the Mundells one way system behind My Lil’ Sperm ‘ead’s car as they received a lift to the venue, but somewhere along the short way to the golf club Sparky disappeared before coming in from up Hearns lane after a long detour!
Apologies were made on behalf of the Herts GM, who was again absent once more, after a phone call to the RA it transpired that his hot water tank had gone, though the GM didn’t find the rhetorical question of “Where’s it gone to then?” very amusing!
The Pack were introduced to the correct respective Run numbers by the Herts RA & the Hare & Hounds GM! The Hare was called forward & unusually he didn’t receive the chorus of booing he normally gets, it seems that last weeks 45 minute Trail had rubbed off on the normal hostilities toward him! The Hare had little to say, nothing normal there then, he said that there were horses to be aware of & that the Trail was set in flour, & that was that!
The Pack were directed out toward the roundabout out at the end of Hearns lane, the Keenies were soon on the Dust as it led around by part of the Pitch & Putt course & on to the green space by the side of the roundabout, it was all too simple as they were led around behind the large bushes & trees to run up to a Bar CHK at a dead end!
The Trail was found off of the roundabout down Herns way, running along the wide green verge to pass by the entrance to Welwyn Football Club & then on to a gap in the hedge protecting a green space by the golf course. Windmill was among those, like Forking Dick Chair, Ringer, Private Parts, Mekon & the Horrors who ran all the way over toward the Pitch & Putt course, only to find that there was no footpath beyond the far hedge & that they would soon be taking a trot diagonally back to the opposite corner emerge back out on to the Herns way.
Sludge was among those who knew that there was not another way out & they cut over to the far end of the green space. The Trail continued down to toward the Mundells, there a CHK was found at the top of the steep, pine tree covered ridge down to the green below! The Trail was quickly picked up on the desire line running along the top of the ridge, behind the thick hedge sheltering the end of the golf course.
As the main body of the Pack reached another CHK, over looking a steep drop down to the end of ‘the lagoon’, Submissive was with a small group gathered there with some hesitation as to whether to descend all the way down or to carry on along the top of the ridge. Mr. X didn’t hesitate & he continued along the top by the golf course’s edge & called “On! On!” as he took the gentle slope down & around to the level of the green at the opposite end of the lagoon, shame that his enthusiastic calling dragged most of the Pack down to the T there!
Amazingly Sludge was among those who began to climb back up the ridge to work their way back to the CHK & then down the steep drop, instead of just simply cutting across the green to find the Trail running over to an under pass. The Hare didn’t quite believe that Sludge had done this, but Sludge did believe that the RA was close on his heels, but he wasn’t!
The Trail led the FRBs through the underpass beneath Waterside, where the acoustics were put to the test with calls of “On! On!” as the Dust took to the path that leads up & around Crookhams to terminate with another Bar CHK! So, back to a scrubby little bit of wooded area by the underpass & there the Hare had marked the trees but Forking Dick Chair missed this & headed off all skew whiff & in to a patch of brambles!
The Pack emerged out on to the edge of the Waterside & soon found them selves on to a CHK point, situated by the gate to an enclosed field at the back of a local School. The majority consensus was to search on the other side of the kissing gate, but a couple decided to look up the other option of the litter strewn path toward the front of the School on Crookhams.
The Dust was found the School entrance, only a short way around from the earlier Bar CHK, now it was case of running down Rowans but Mr. X was a little sceptical as the FRBs were led on by the Footpath sign pointing the way to the footpath at the end of Salmon close, his suspicions were right as the Keenies were led on a loop around a block of houses to come back to that footpath!
Sludge was very vocal to the Hare as he said that the loop wasn’t very well marked & that the Hare should go back from the Short cut he was marking & make the way around the long trail clearer to see! Needless to say the Hare continued on down the steps & on to the footpath down the edge of a field to the edge of the B1000.
At a gap in the hedgerow an Arrow directed the Pack across the busy road to Hertford & on down through the fallow land by the river Mimram. Sparky, who was up with the FRBs, seemed to loose sight of the Dust, & like H5’S Madge the previous week, he came running back toward the safety of the Pack after failing to see a very obvious blob out on a tree by the river.
On the way down to the footbridge over the Mimram, the Hare admitted that he had thought of putting a river crossing in at this point, as the dust led up toward a suitable looking crossing point before the narrow wooden bridge above the natural weir, but the Pack were spared the cold water treatment as it looked a little too deep!
Once across the Mimram, the Trail followed the footpath out to the driveway to Tewin Water House, the former school for deaf kids. An arrow directed the Pack across the tarmac & straight up the Footpath between the two fenced-off horse paddocks, with a couple of nags in each side. It was a long steady climb up to the hedgerow at the end, once at the top of the ridge a CHK was found.
The choice of heading toward Digswell was soon found to be false, the second option out in to the valley, along the edge of a brown seeded field soon yielded results as the Keenies found the Dust leading the long way to the very far end to the north. Along the way there were those who distrusted the Hare & believed that they could be being led astray on a very long Falsie, but it was going to be far worse than that!
Looking back in the distance, the Keenies could see a group of Hashers & Horrors gathered at the last CHK & they didn’t seemed to be going anywhere, even though the Hare had set off to the East on the footpath from Digswell they weren’t following on behind him!
At the end of the field an arrow directed the FRBs up toward the bottom end of Harmer Green, which is way off in the distance, this was in the completely opposite direction the Hare had taken, but most of the FRBs duly followed the Dust out to the North West.
So far all along the way there had been plenty of Herts Hashers looking at pre-empting the Hare by using their local knowledge, but they were deluded in their own belief in knowing the local area. They would end up running further than most when they tried to avoid what they would think would be a loop around to Tewin!
Forking Dick Chair was tempted to join the H4 breakaway group but had more sense than that (There, it can be done, using the ‘Forking Dick Chair’ & ‘sense’ in the same sentence!) & he headed off with the likes of Shufflecock & Count Roadkill to take a tour of the whole Trail.
A few of Herts ‘Gang of four’ genuinely didn’t see the arrow & assumed, wrongly, that it was a CHK there, they’ll have to go to Specsavers! Having seen the orange T-shirted Hare head off to the east, four senior H4 Hashers wrongly assumed that the Trail would be on the parallel Footpath that leads up through the Dawley Plantation. This entailed a steep climb up to the wood for Mr. X, Skip, & Windmill as they followed Sludge’s lead, but once they had scaled the heights there was no sign of any Dust.
The long route out to Margery Green offered the opportunity for Windmill to do some twitching, when Mr. X spotted a couple of chaffinches flitting about in the hedgerow, which would take Windmill’s mind off of the Hare not going around to sweep the tail of the Pack & loose part of the Pack he was with!
Meanwhile, the rest of the Pack were making their way away in the opposite direction on a very long loop around to Digswell, Hyena was among those who followed the whole Trail almost up to the edge of Harmer Green before dropping down on the long footpath toward Digswell Water.
A third left-hand turn meant that the Pack were now on to the footpath back to the CHK at the top end of the horse paddocks, that had caused some confusion for those with Horrors earlier. The main part of the Pack were now following on well behind the Hare, in the direction toward Tewinbury Farm.
The four lost H4 Hashers could still see the Hare’s orange t-shirt, a crop field away over in the distance, well one of them could, he could also see T-B-T wearing the distinctive off-coloured Hashit, neither of which were the most distinctive T-shirt on the Trail as that was being worn by Mekon
The Hare was now marshalling the likes of No Eye Deer, ARP, Pete, Millie, Roger the Cabin Boy & Kylie along the Trail & the FRBs would be some way off of catching them up. A CHK was found on the Trail that had a Falsie heading northward toward the lost H4 Hashers, but having found it to be a decoy, the Pack continued eastward.
Another CHK was found just before Westley wood, the Footpath up toward Muspatt’s farm was the last chance of the Trail coming up toward where Sludge & Company were running, this was never going to happen as it was a Faslie!
So, the Pack disappeared in to Westley wood to come out on to Church lane, where it crossed over to drop down through Rectory Wood, in which a CHK was found at the crossroads of two footpaths, this didn’t cause too much trouble as the Trail was found running through the grounds of Tewinbury Farm.
Meanwhile on Sludge’s Trail, he was leading the rest on a ‘Long cut’ up Church lane from Muspatt’s farm to go through the grounds of St Peter’s Church, in the vain hope of intercepting the Trail, but this forlorn challenge was never going to happen since the short cut that they thought the Hare was on was actually the Trail.
Sludge now started preparing his excuses for the Circle, even though the Herts RA was with him! He chose the one that the RA’s gear was in his car & he had to get the keys back there in time for the RA’s arrival, around about an hour after setting off!
The four lost souls came in to Tewinbury Farm from the east to find the Dust leading on out of the main entrance. For some, the new bird spotting hide, over looking the ponds by Tewinbury farm, was too much to resist, for almost all of the rest the Wedding Exhibition was far too much to contemplate looking at!
Sludge & Windmill got the twitches again & took to peering out of the two story wooden structure, which smelt like it was brand new. Skip & Mr. X had other plans, they decided to carry on as the Bar would be open in 2 minutes!
The last part of the Trail was to negotiate the busy B1000 to find the On Inn on what was the old Hearns lane, now just a place to stroll up between the two halves of the Golf course. Apparently a few of the H5 Horrors were seen vandalising the ‘On Inn’ when they found it, surely the Trail wasn’t that bad? I mean it’s not as if they were led astray by Sludge! Perhaps they did the long loop & weren’t happy about it?
The first ones back to the On Inn soon found Fartin Marin lurking in the car park, he threatened to be more regular with Herts in the up coming months due to Hockey club demotion/promotion? He could have gone around the Trail in 30 minutes if he missed out the loop!
The Pack were pretty well spread out as they came Inn, Windmill was rather concerned that Bus Stop had yet to return, you could tell who on Herts had taken the Short cut & who had done the whole Trail by the vast difference in the time they arrived back, for instance ARP, No Eye Deer, Millie, Pete, Roger the Cabin Boy & Kylie were back fairly early, whilst Sparky, Psycho, Party Animal & Hyena weren’t!
Bus Stop was still absent even after Hyena was Inn! But eventually she made it back, since their were no junk shops to catch her eye around the Trail, it was obvious that she had fallen way behind after stopping for a bit of twitching at the new hide!
There was a splendid vista back out over where the Pack had Run, probably better than the opposite way around, though things have improved since SK&B’s carbuncle of a building has gone!
The Down-Downs saw the Hare rewarded for a Trail that was longer than his previous one but a lot short than most of his others. Hyena was called out for accepting a ‘Weightwatchers’ brand crisp when he goes to the opposition at ‘Fat Fighters’!
Millie was out for her Decca Herts Run, bumbags are on their way & hopefully aren’t the ‘body-bags’ that Roger the Cabin Boy came out with! This means that the Hash ought to come up with a name for Millie & for Pete, so thinking caps on!
From H5 Skippy & Submissive were out for their H5 Decca Runs, for which they received a mug, Mr. X moaned that all he got for 10 Runs (way back in Herts ancient History) was a cheap badge & a kiss from General! (Doesn’t that send a chill down your spine? But at least things have vastly improved then? –Ed)
Sparky received the Herts Hashit, including ice in the pocket, for getting lost while following on right behind My Lil’ Sperm ‘ead’s car, but mainly for being Madge’s stunt man & running back & forth to the Pack while out on the Trail! Whereas Split Box received the much nicer H5 Birthday cake hat, & a Down-Down accompanied with a chorus of Hashy Birthday to you!
Can’t quite recall what Count Roadkill had done, but for some reason he was sent over to stand beneath a conifer, like some chasten schoolboy he lurked over there having given up the H5 Hashflashing to someone else as the H5 awards continued!
Mekon was called out for her hit, probably for wearing a loud shirt in a built up area, let’s hope she uses colour catcher when she washes it? Unlike Double Entry who washed her Forking Dick Chair ‘Team RA’ T-shirt, so she was called forward to be punished for washing his face!