This was the twenty fifth time that Doc and The Chamois have hosted the hangover hash, so most of the regulars have seen all the permutations of route that can be laid from Freeman Towers rather like the variations of what you can do with the leftover Christmas turkey. This year for a change we stayed well away from the raging waters of the Lavant which once again is in full spate. A good crowd turned up, not all hashing, including the whole spectrum of mankind ranging from Leighton (son of Godiva) a babe in arms all the way through to Doc who is now challenging Methusela. After a short briefing we set off, Flash having forgotten to take the usual pre-hash snap, and headed east along The Avenue to a check just after the bend to the south. Dr Blood and Flash were the first to be taken in by the falsies here that headed towards the Lavant and then as the route headed over to Fordwater others such as The Ref also fell for the same ruse.
Then we headed into the houses at Ferndale and south on Maplehurst where for a while total
confusion reigned, reminiscent of the chorus from The Messiah that goes "For we like sheep
have gone astray, we have turned each to his own way".
A simple check at Centurian Way was easily sorted out by finding the trail along the gully
through the old WW2 tank traps into Brandy Hole Copse and down to the pond where all the trails
seemed false and everyone did a bit of checking until Pink Flamingo ventured out onto the road
and it was all go again into the western part of the copse where we have not been before.
The rest of the trail was a bit of a formality to get to the On-In by retracing our steps courtesy of some relayed checks (OF is an expert at this) and then up The Lane and IN after one hour and fifteen minutes.
Drink food and warmth awaited us kindly provided by Doc and The Chamois.
Then the big item the JMs for 2010 who are... Can Man and Soapbox.
We then launched into the raffle prizes, where for the first time I did not win a single thing, boo hoo. Bambi.
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