I am not sure why the old colonial Kenyan flag was raised at The Unicorn
on this Remembrance Sunday, obviously some link between the pub, Kenya,
and wartime sacrifice rather than it being the only cloth that could be
found to run up the pole.
The flag told us that there was a light breeze from the East, which had blown
away the previous day's heavy rain to give us the sepia sunshine of a
crisp autumn morning. Eleven on the eleventh of eleven arrived and Spiderman
lead us in the sombre two minutes, the whisper of a breeze through golden
oak leaves, the far off call of crows, and the crunch of shoes on
gravel as Mussolini joined us, just a little late.
We had a couple of welcome backs, Dickhead needed no introduction, and
Jennie who has been hiding down under told us that she remembers
hashing with The Chamois and Doc.
Needing the slightest excuse for a performance, Kinky launched into
a review of our markings, pouring out copious amounts of flour which
disappeared into the gravel. This allowed time for Popeye, who was
even later than Mussolini, to join us as we gradually filtered
out of the car park, West towards the church.
Companies like M and S or BMW for example use what is known
as "just in time delivery", a system that our Hares seemed to
favour as we noted that one of the pair was still out there, laying
the trail even as we had started to consume it.
We wasted a bit of time looking along the road to Cocking thinking that
we might be headed towards the muddy delights of Hoe Copse, however
it was not to be. The pack then played catch up to Old Faithful, Dickhead
and Dancer who had rightly chosen to splash through the reedy
marshland North to the pond on Mill Lane.
A bit like the MCC sometimes, we lost our way on a cricket ground, the one
opposite the pond, until Two Ferrets went a long way on faith and
discovered a sparse trail North.
We were then treated to a lovely spell of moderately paced hashing,
plenty of checks and falsies but nothing too obscure. This took us
through Goldballs Plantation with the ground changing from hard chalk
under oak and beech to soft sand under pine, with heather, gorse and
peat quagmire. We stopped for a regroup near the cottages at Little
London before following the bracken clad stream from there South on
to the exposed flatland of Heyshott Common.
The sun almost felt warm as we turned to face it and squint our way along
the path to Foundry Cottages. Somewhere along the way Flash picked up
a lone black glove, who knows why?, you normally leave that sort of thing
alone, who knows where it has been? or by whom worn? At the aforementioned
regroup Prancer, the missing Hare, who had suddenly appeared from behind
a bush, started to bemoan the loss of one of his favourite gloves,
yes you have guessed the rest.
As soon as we realised that we were back on Mill Lane a bit of a race to the
pub started, with Dickhead and Flash becoming little dots in the immense grassy
field between us and the spire of St James's. The rest of us reached the On-In
after one hour and thirty eight minutes of autumnal hashing.
At the circle we asked Flash to tell us what drugs he was taking, because
someone so old and decrepit as he should not be able to run so fast.
Of course we gave the Hash-It to Popeye for turning up late for the parade.
The pub was chock-a-block with poppy wearing punters so we took our libation
into the garden and watched the shadow of The Downs advance towards us
as the temperature headed South.
On On ! Bambi
See: SM's attenuated track OR the rest ... AND ... photos on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on-on | |||||||||||||||||||||||||