Coming into a sun drenched forest alarms bells began to ring when a group of motorised treasure hunters in coloured crowns zoomed in and out of the car park to be followed by the local contingent of Dungeons and Dragons. I had to explain to small foreign wife why English people need to run around a forest carrying a cardboard axe - silly really. All we do is run around a forest carrying a wooden toilet seat!
It must be said that it was a modest gathering but we were there in quality if not strength of numbers.
Treefeller had decided that if yours truly could cycle around then so could he but just to be awkward I jogged around (unless my local doctor is reading this on the net and then I most certainly cycled).
So the Can Man had tried to swell numbers by bringing family members which was to his credit but as we all knew the rules (but never follow them) it was a short preamble and off we went.
We found the first check quickly, and the second and the third and fourth in fact all 30 of them in quick succession. The problem was that there were so many checks that avoiding doing some checking became a real task and only those truly crafty skivers managed it.
Creech Wood is not familiar to us and we now know that it consists of hundreds of paths that cross this way and that and are designed to lose any poor lost little hashers.
Check followed check with a few very dubious ones thrown in including a loop that had you back on the same path which led to a check with a falsie that proclaimed SUCKERS instead of the traditional three dots. I had to explain to the other half the English expression adding insult to injury.
Old Faithfuls knee seemed to be holding up after the recent problems and his gleeful grin as we kept coming back completely lost showed he was enjoying himself.
So much so that he forgot to give any inside information to his dearly beloved and she was forced to be as lost as the rest of us.
While Peter stood on check after check chuckling at our futile efforts the pack seemed to be calling Check ahead as often as On On.
There was a good deal of calling though, which was needed as the ferns hid not only the alleged trail but also any small hashers that ventured into the depths.
As the fateful hour approached some pack members began to think that they knew the direction of the chariots and headed into the sun. They were of course completely wrong but gradually the pack realised we were heading home and broke into a frenzied stumble. Splasher was extolling the virtues of our wonderful postal system and declaring himself first class male which forced one young lady to take a tumble (when I say tumble I mean the shock of the statement made her trip over not a tumble...... Oh never mind.)
We finally arrived back at the chariots intact - which is more than can be said for the Dungeons and Dragons who never showed up again - and awarded the hashit to The Panda for comments made to the JM.
A really enjoyable hash in beautiful sunshine with lots of checks and the pack kept together,
So well done the hares.
Apres hash was at the nearby pub garden where postmortems were conducted.
A good day had by one and all - On On