Run	Date	Hare(s)	Description	MapRef	1:50000	1:25000	1:10000	More
995	2022-11-06 11:00	Sausage Lottery will lay a trial on Saturday for an informal run on the Sunday	Eartham Woods	SU938106

This run almost didn't happen, a distinct lack of volunteers, coupled with yellow weather warnings from the Met Office, made for a bleak prospect. Then up popped Sausage Lottery's hand, "I'll do it" quoth she, "I'll lay a trail on Satuarday night while walking the animal that is happy to be identified as a dog" quoth she "If you can find it on Sunday morning, you'll have a run" quoth she "and if you can't find it here is a map, because I won't be there, I'll be drinking beer with Hursley Hash" quoth she.

The trail was laid, no falsies obviously, and presumably there would be a check wherever the pooch had stopped to mark the territory.

On Hash morning, only a few turned up to look for something that was probably not going to be there, it had rained all night after all, however hope lives eternal, and anyway Snake Charmer, who is well known for her brilliant map reading, had a map, so what could possibly go wrong?.

A light rain was coming and going, going and coming, as we gathered, and Canman turned up, at ninety you would have thought he would have had more sense, but it's hard to break bad habits at his age.

We spread out at the start, mostly to the North and soon found some yellow dough, North West towards Jackdine Farm, where there has been recent brush clearance, and turned North to follow the farm fence, a soggy uphill climb avoiding newly exposed tree root trip hazards.

Then, nuffin, a blown down tree blocked the main path, nuffin beyond, so we fanned out, nuffin, so Snake charmer pulled out the map making sure we couldn't see it. After many rotations of the paper she seemed content with it's orientation and after some rumination declared "I think it's in that direction" while waving her arms about in no particular direction.

Someone muttered the oath "don't just do something, stand there!" which galvanised us into action, running East out of St Mary's Wood, and Lo! making contact with the trail on the long slow climb up towards North Wood on the slick flint pebble and chalk trail.

No one seemed more surprised to have found a trail than Snake Charmer, who put it down to her remarkable map reading skills, did we already mention this?.

We worked this trail all the way into North Wood, as first Substandard and Popeye found nothing to left or right and then Kinky and Splasher nothing to right or left, we gradually realised that dog walking seems to involve avoiding too many really shiggy paths, obvious when one stops to think, but when did a Hasher do that?.

Now another patch of nuffin, but tradition dictates a visit to the bench at the seven way junction, and it was not far away, so we headed there and saw more soggy, slimy, white streaks and lumps that looked a bit more solid than an incontinent heron's deposits.

Unfortunately we chose the wrong exit from the junction, later examination of the map revealed that we should have first headed South East towards Northwood Cottages and then cut West through The Plain and out on the road by Wood Cottage.

Instead we interpreted the long straight bit on Sausages's map as being Stane Street, and following a disagreement between Spiderman and Bambi as to where this was, we ended up taking a route back to the chariots that we remembered from a previous run here. In any case our small group had done a lot of running in humid conditions and the thought of liquid refreshment in the warm and dry was rapidly becoming irresistible.

To put a full stop to the trail, we did notice the well preserved On-In that marked the end, after one hour and ten minutes of invigorating hashing, thanks to Sausage Lottery.

No hanging about, no Hash-It, Spiderman forgot it again, a minor discussion about The George, No!, so a blast down the lane with wipers beating in rhythm with something on the radio to The Old Stables.

Too wet and cold for the garden, and plenty of table space inside in the nook that we always seem to occupy, it's not reserved, and perfect for our select band. Here we consumed the usual, and spent an hour discussing the important topics of our time, much as we always do.

On – On ! Bambi

See: Bambi's track ... AND ... photos

Also see: SM's track Brading IOW ... AND ... Bambi's Brading IOW photos