Run No. 1348               18^th July 2010

Venue:                           Chez Mumblehead

Beer:                               Red Squirrel & Weston Cider plus Apple Mark E Mark’s Paint Stripper!

Location:                       Little Hadham

Hare(s):                          My Lil’ Sperm ‘ead

Runners:                        23

Virgins:                           0

Visitors:                          0

Newies:                          0                                 

Hounds:                         3

Après Hashers:            0

Total:                              27

Membership:                Surprised at the length of the Trail!

Sunday morning & the Pack were greeted by the sight of Porky Pie looking very dishevelled & rough.  He made the rest look & feel a lot better than they probably were!  Porky Pie didn’t know what he had slept on, but whatever it was it had left a line right down one side of his face!

Sunday’s Trail came with a the promise that it wasn’t going to be a long one, but knowing who the Hare was it still didn’t bode well with the Pack.  But those who had camped out overnight knew that the Hare had only been out for a mere hour & twenty minutes, which was half the time he usually takes when setting a Trail!

The hosts made a splendid breakfast, some of the overnighters overdid things a bit & found that it was a struggle to run when it came to the Trail!  Still, sitting outside around a fire, eating breakfast was a splendid thing.  Quite why the fire was going only Puddles, Spillage & Back Pack could answer

The Pack grew in size from the previous day’s meagre turnout of 11 it was now up to 23!  There had to be some marshalling of the cars to keep them off of the seeded area.  2-1-2 Maureen was amongst those, as was Zing-a-long-a-max, Fire Ball, T-B-T, Ketch Up, Roger the Cabin Boy & No Eye Deer.

The Old GM returned that morning, after Ewok went to pick him up.  He received a few “Sack him!” as he came to introduce the Pack to the correct Run number!  The Hare was called forward, strangely there was no booing as he said that it was a short Trail, there were a couple of roads to watch out for while crossing them, & that was about it! 

            The Trail left Chez Mumblehead & turned left, to head up toward the main road of the north.  Sludge, who had got the bus back that morning, led the way around to the right on to the Stortord road & over the bridge spanning the dried up Ash to a Bar CHK by the Bus Stop he took back to St Evenage!

            Psycho, Skip, Little Hole, Pebble Dash, Pepé le Pew, T-B-T all made it to the crossroads as the others came back from the Bar CHK.  Sludge was soon up front, with Zing-a-long-a-max.  As the Pack made their way off down the Albury road, only a few yards on o it an arrow directed them down a path to come out on the fields behind the homes.  Psycho & Fireball slowed up to have a chat, the Trail progressed along behind the back gardens of the homes on the Albury road.

            The Hash arrived at a CHK beside the bridleway leading back toward the main road, last year this was a long falsie & the RA was a bit wary of taking this route, but Zing-a-long-a-max & Sludge weren’t coming back, & it had been noticed that the SCBs were not following on behind on the field’s edge!

            The Trail passed by a remote cottage & came out to the Albury road, there an arrow directed the Hash straight across to the footpath running down in to the valley & then up through the crop fields to Church End.

Mark E Mark, Lobby & Mumblehead all managed to take the short cut, was their home brew responsible for their SCBing?

The pace dropped to a walk as the single file of Hashers became held up by Ketch Up pushing Jaron in his buggy & dog walkers ahead of them!  Most seemed to be happy for the respite through the valley.

The Trail led up through the more open space of the Churchyard of St Cecilia (Patron Saint of Music) passing by Captain William Harvey RN’s grave (he sailed with Capt Cook each of his world trips) & on out to a CHK was found out on the large parking space of the access road.  The Trail was picked up down the drive & the Pack were heading back toward the Stortford road.  At the crossing point directly over to a farm track, it was noticed that the drain cover had been pinched, leaving a large open hole to be avoided!

The Pack crossed when there was a gap in the traffic, now the Dust led on down by Stone House farm & took to a wide grassy path running by the Caravan & Camping club site.  Down to the right the a very picturesque old house, with red brick cimneys, could just be seen behind the trees nestling in to the golden fields.

Sludge & Zing-a-long-a-max were up at the front, as Fireball, Skip, Little Hole & Mr. X came up to this part they passed by three kids out playing on the path, they began to run along with the Pack, until one of them took a tumble & then they gave up.

The Trail followed the contour of the field’s perimeter & then began following the rising landscape of open fields until it reached the level & came to a CHK, the choices from here were to run over to Muggins wood to the right, Millfield Cottage to the left or straight on to the Hedgerow bordering Hogcroft lane.

The option to head on to the hedgerow was appealing & this was indeed the route the Trail took, none of the FRBs took the southeast option from the CHK on Hogcroft lane as the opposite direction was heading in the right direction for the On Inn, not only that it began to head down hill.

As Mr. X, Fireball, Little Hole, & Skip approached a footpath off of uncapped by-way of Hogcroft lane toward the aptly named Muggins wood, they found Zing-a-long-a-max & Sludge were coming back from further up the hedged-in Hogcroft lane. 

By now there were the Hash was split in to two distinct groups, the FRBs & the rest of the Pack, those who were well off of the pace were hindered by the effects of alcohol, walking dogs, getting the Horrors around & pushing buggies, some may have been effect by all of the above!

Sludge found Dust running down through the crop field on one of the two paths diverging from the lane, he was on his way down toward Muggins wood, but he was the only one to carry on toward the plantation from the CHK at the opposite edge of the field.

Mr. X took the footpath heading out to the west, for he knew that this led back to Little Hadham, sure enough this was the case & Dust was found.  The Hare marked a short cut on other of the two diverging paths to intercept the lower path, now Zing-a-long-a-max soon took up the mantle of leading the way down through the vale but as the Trail approached the ford in the River Ash, he took to running up the steep grassy slope on the left.

There was no way Mr.X or Sludge were going to fall for this faint & they ploughed on to the village, especially as the Nags head was clearly in view!  The final stage was to run through the dry ford, it seems that the water extraction around these parts has completely killed off the river in these parts, just beyond the ford the On Inn was found by the bus shelter.  This was found just after the Nags Head & the lure of the hostelry was pretty strong for some & they popped in for a quick Ale as the sun was above the yard arm!

Now, Mumblehead, Lobby Lobster & Pebble Dash were thought to be languishing in the Nags Head, but when they finally arrived back at the site they had a terrific excuse as to why they had been delayed, it wasn’t down to drinking either!  They had come back in to Little Hadham to find a "Bearded Dragon" in the road, just basking in the sun, so they had a mission to make sure that it was safe but this became rather complex as the owner was not at home so they arranged with a neighbour to keep it safe!

Back at the site & the hosts had carried on with their splendid job of feeding the Hash, the stories of what went wrong with InterHash continued as the Pack tucked in.  Again the 3 second rule came in as there were now definitely more Hashers than chairs, a couple of travel blankets were put down but the dogs seemed to like these!

One dog who would have preferred to be left on the blanket was Charlie, who was muzzled up as Mumblehead stripped out his coat, he may not have liked it but he would have felt a lot better in the heat of the day!  Apparently Kylie is next to have his hair stripped out, ouch!

Once the food had been devoured, it was down to the voting of a new committee, this took some time as it seemed the pens that Paxo had brought along didn’t want to work on the copied paper!

One shocking thing the Pack got to see was a picture of Junior in the Times financial section!  Yes it's true, he was pictured with a box of eggs & light bulbs as the company which employs him tries to float itself on the stock market, seems that they over valued them selves after forgetting about the afore mention eggs & light bulbs!

The counting took some while, but before any Down-Downs took place Skip waned to run through the accounts, which were in two parts & some of the Hash didn’t get the fact that the financial year ends at the end of March & our 25^th fell in a new financial year, hence their being the two parts to it all!  Anyhow, the result is we have a fair bit of Dosh to keep us ticking over.

By now, the Ale had run out, after the gluttons had been at it the night before & a dodgy tap was blamed for some leakage!  So only a lucky few received a Beer as a hit, the rest had to make do with Mark E Mark’s cider!  B&Q are looking in to the paint stripping qualities of this years brew!

The following received a Down-Down, starting with the weekend’s Hares of Kylie, Mumblehead & My Lil’ Sperm ‘ead!  In no particular order the following received Down-Downs, Porky Pie for looking the roughest in the morning, attracting millions of Thunderbugs & making the horses think that they had a large carrot to eat on the Saturday Trail!  So he wasn’t on his own, Pepé le Pew was out for his almost not stop ‘Ginger’ barrage at Porky overnight!

The Bearded Dragon rescuers were out for their reward, which was Mark E Mark’s cider!  Ketch Up was called out for still wearing his Brands Hatch wrist band, after he spent the previous days racing around the circuit, show off!

Then finally the committee election results were announced, those who were standing down or were not re-elected were given a Down-Down for their efforts in the job they had held for the last year!  The grimaces upon the faces of those downing one of these small shots was enough to make the rest wish that they hadn’t been prepared to stand for office!

Master of the Fat Fighters Scales – Hyena*; On Sexy – Fartin Martin*; Hash Cash - No Eye Deer; Hash Trash – Sis*; Haberdasher -  Pepé le Pew; Hash Beer – Kylie; Curate -  Mark E Mark; Hare Raiser – My Lil’ Sperm ‘ead; Joint Master -  Paxo; RA – Mr.X; Grand Master -  Flip Top*

* Not present but given the job anyway!

The Cider was finished & the Pack slowly made their way home after a great weekend, shame a few more couldn’t have been there for Saturday, especially after the effort the hosts had put in.  Sludge ended up leaving his car at Chez Mumblehead for another night as he had to catch the bus back for a second day!