Run	Date	Hare(s)	Description	MapRef	1:50000	1:25000	1:10000	More
888	2018-02-04 11:00	Prancer & Vixen	Stansted Park Sth CP	SU753104

We had a bright cloudless sky with the temperature hovering around zero for this numerically interesting run. Number eight eight eight, same backwards, same upside down, same backwards and upside down, rotate the digits to get three infinities, add the digits to get 24, Feb 4th the date of the run, multiply the numbers to get 512 which added gets back the digit 8, the possibilities are endless, but I suppose I ought to get back to trying to remember what happened on this hash.

We had two new faces, Michaela and Andy as well as visits from Mr Beaky and Camel Humper (Wessex HHH) along with a sizeable crowd of regulars. The JMs gave us a brief briefing, "no crossing of white lines", before we rushed off to try and get warm and Belle so excited that she lost grip on the first bend and thwacked into a solid wooden post, unbelievably without injury.

Initially we headed northwest with Two Ferrets, Old Faithful and Dancer out in front, from then on I have not got a clue as to where we went, exactly.

The paths in this part of Stansted Forest form a neat grid with few visual queues. At nearly every cross path there was a check, frequently with at least one exit barred by a white line. After several instances of Deja Vu it was clear that we were going round in circles with the hares busily re-laying strategic sections of trail.

Not far from the start there was the first fish hook that caught Dancer, Old Faithful, Bika and Bambi, followed by another just for Dancer. A regroup followed, at a sunny spot that made for a good snap, then Pocket Rocket had a shoe sucked off in the cloying mud north of The Avenue just before Two Ferrets, Old Faithful and Kinky overran a falsie, stumbled on the On-In and went so far back towards the Chariots that they decided to call it a day, no one noticed that they were missing for a long time.

Meanwhile the pack was preoccupied with yet another loop around a large clear felled square section which included a fish hook that should have caught Bambi, Snake Charmer, Dancer, Bika, Dag, Spiderman, Splasher and Hairbrush, however only the first four of these bothered to comply.

Suddenly we caught sight of Stansted House, we were almost at The Sling, the far end of The Avenue and faced a long long On-In over slithery soil to reach the chariots after one hour and sixteen minutes of gyratory hashing.

At the circle the hares brandished copies of the GPS track for the trail, revealing that we had been carving out a big eight eight eight pattern underlined by the long On-In, Ingenious!, something to go down in the annals.

To be fair Bika, had voiced his suspicion about the pattern of the trail after the first two loops, few heard what he said, thus most of us were surprised at the end.

As far as the Hash-It is concerned, Old Faithful nearly claimed it for sporting a bloody sliced up chin after a shaving event, however it was presented to Splasher for barging a JM into the mud.

We then spent two hours discussing the best way to get to The Cricketers in Westbourne, where we had an enjoyable time crammed in like penguins at one side of the bar, ignoring the wide open space at the other, funny old world.

On – On ! Bambi.

See: track