| Run 427: | 18 June 2000: Stoughton |
| Hares: | Jan Hill and Michael Brown |
What a superb Hashtastic hash !. Well he would say that wouldn't he, so he did. It was a brilliant hot day, the like of which we dont see too often. The assembly numbered just over the dozen on account of some of the regulars having suddenly taken to running round in circles in Holland, sans trail, sans checks and sans sense. The Joint Masters arrived in chariots from different ends of the spectrum. One small and red which managed to break down in the car park, the other classic and green and in perfect working order. After a bit of pushing of the red chariot to see if it would start we remembered why were there and were called to order.
No messing around, the trail was out down the road between Wildham and Inholmes Woods. A check to the right of the road just after entering the woods split the pack, with the front runners chosing to check the flatter Wildham trails. The On On was of course up the steep track into Inholmes with, I believe, Derek and Phil at the "Tete" as the French say..... but not for long as they soon overran the next check and headed off down a falsie. The woods here cover a ridge that lies NE-SW and the first part of the run meandered between the ridge top and the southern slope almost all the way to the southern tip of the ridge without any realy difficult checks. At check number five we had a regroup and quaffed some orange juices which the kind Mr Brown had stashed nearby. There were three ways to go from the restart, one of these was straight down the incline into Stoughton, guess which one Steve chose ?, guess which one was false ?, what a brave fellow. A handfull of people chose to take adavantage of the official shortcut over to check number 53 while the rest followed the trail over the ridge North and down to Pitlands farm and into unhashed territory. After stopping at the farm to talk to the lady about the two nice horses in the paddock we made our way up hill and North East to the top of the Airstrip where the shortcutters had left the remaining Juice at the T junction in the trail. The pack was evenly divided here into the "lefties" and the "righties". In true new labour fashion it was the lefties that were right (if you see what I mean ?) and the righties that were wrong. Unfortunately one of the far right tendancy lost all touch with the rest of the pack and had to be guided back to the true way. Thus for a short while the pack was relieved from the constant cries of "Lets Hear Ya !". The last few checks took us back to the top of the slope above the road at the northern perimeter of the wood and down the Forestry Commission road to the On In, at about 1 hour 20.
Once again the ceremonies were in the car park because both Masters couldn't make it to the ale. One wanted to drive off in his classic green thing, the other was too afraid to stop in case his small red thing couldn't be got going again. Miraim got the Hashit for "training" the previous week by walking the whole SD way. The rest went down to the Barley Mow to replace the gallons of fluid that had been lost.
ON-ON Jan H.