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 HASH MAG ARCHIVE 1992: RUN NO.461 Run Date: 17 August 1992 Over The Hills And Far Away At the beginning of Autumn when there is always a question in the hounds' minds as to whether there is a need to bring a torch, and there is usually a run that removes any doubt they may have had. This year this was that run. It also removed any kind thoughts that may have been tucked away in a few minds about Maximouth! It might perhaps be pertinent at this stage to put into words the standard Cream Soda method of planning and laying a run - and dealing with the inevitable criticism afterwards. The first, and fatal, step is getting your name on the Hare List. Someone comes up to your shoulder in a dark and noisy pub and mumbles something, and, thinking you are being offered a pint you quickly say yes. When this is followed up with a date you realise your mistake. But not to worry, it is so far in the distant future that it can be safely ignored. If you remember, you put this date in your diary marking off a recce a week beforehand and the day before for laying it. Any thoughts about noting when to get sawdust are ignored. The weeks pass blissfully with Monday evenings filled with cursing the hares, before, during and after runs. One of these Mondays a person with a pen and a scrumpled bit of paper will ask you where you are laying your run from, and they want to know right now. After careful thought of two seconds you give him a location you can remember (and also in the case of Not Norman a telephone number as well, as a Grid Reference). You settle down happily again with a virtuous feeling of having done one's duty for the Hash - although there may remain a little worrying niggle tucked away in a quiet corner of the grey stuff, in sterner characters this will quickly disappear. One Sunday you turn the page of the diary and it says 'recce Hash', but as you can think of much better things to do, you ignore this. However, the following day in the Hash Mag you see your name down as the Hare for next week. But how could this have happened? You are unprepared, you might have to go to a grandmother's funeral, you think you have to go away on that day. The Haremaster seems strangely firm and resolute, is this the person you had laughed and joked with only last week? The niggle grows to an 'unsettling influence'. Come the weekend you realise you won't be able to lay the trail on the Sunday as you already have a prior arrangement, well golf is a lot more interesting.You plan the Monday so that you go out first thing so that you have plenty of time for any unforeseen upsets. Monday morning comes and with a whole day off you have plenty of time to lay the hash, in fact it would be best to wait until mid afternoon so that after laying the run you don't have to travel home and then return again. You potter around in the morning and then during a late lunch you realise you only have enough sawdust for half a run. This creates a sort of panic but you manage to get some, although it means you have to leave home a bit later than planned as you forgot to take the map with you. You also have to look up the hash mag to check where you are starting from. You get there and look at the map - this sort of recce avoids all that nonsense about getting wet feet and rain down the back of your neck. Realising that time is getting tight you cut down on the original plan of where the run is going. So this is it, you're standing there, in your waterproofs that leak at all stategic points (it always rains when you have to lay a run), weighed down with sawdust and the mist is coming down so that the map becomes a bit of an irrelevance. It is at this time you remember all the old hurts you have suffered at the hands of previous hares and the insults you have received from the front runners. The loops will go up all the steepest hills and back down again, the checkbacks will be of a particularly unpleasant nature and the checks will be very difficult to sort out, with false trails going on for ages, some with crosses and some without (this always infuriates the front runners). And of course, this allows the hare to maintain a casual pace around the run, arriving at the checks when the front runners are spread at great distances in the wrong direction. The map, of course, does not tell all and whilst laying the run you will stumble across things that are as much a surprise to you as they are going to be unpleasant to the hounds; deep bogs, precipices and farmyards with fulsome shiggy would fall into this category. This is known as fine tuning. After about an hour of this your interest will naturally flag and you decide to cut the run down further so that you can get it finished quicker in time to get a cup of tea in that caff down the road. It all comes to an end eventually and you realise you have more sawdust left than you would have thought for an hour's run. Forget it. If you're going to let every little thing worry you you shouldn't be hashing. As the hounds drift in, the keenies (those with different types of running shoes for different terrain), will ask you for some guidance as to which they should wear. I ask you! Give them entirely incorrect information. On the dot of 7.30 call "On On" in order to ensure any late arrivals, even if only by a few seconds, never find the run or never catch up if they do. If all goes to plan you will not break into a sweat at any moment, you will be roundly cursed by the front runners as they pass you time and time again and you will get back in about an hour, certainly no longer. This criticism will continue in the car park and at the On Down. There will be criticism made because you did not go into areas with good running and nice views - just tell them that they were SSSI's. I don't know what they are, but it keeps the orienteerers quiet. In all cases ignore it, a thick skin is essential. You can enjoy yourself in the pubs for a while, confident that the Haremaster will only approach you again in desperation. So, back to Maximouth's run, or Gobshite as he is becoming more widely known as. Regrettably he had strayed from the guidelines I have noted above. This run from Holming Beam, near Princetown, showed signs of having been well recced - very well recced. The moor must have bean tramped for miles and miles, all of which was used. A nice touch, however, was the nearly invisible sawdust, which is always a godsend to the slower runners, as the front, runners find difficulty in following the trail. A warning, was given about the 'Long' runners not going through Wistmans Wood. This is the sort of information that the dedicated short cutter thrives on. There was a run up to an old pit and a check, that was the first of many, that spread us all far and wide. We then came down to the leat and the river through some terrain that even Goebbels would have hesitated to use. Three crossings of the river were sufficient to ensure that most of us had grit to run on for the next hour and a half. Extra for those who also crossed the leat a few times. This brought us to the Beardown Woods and a delightful false trail into the woods and out again. Muscles must have known something we didn't, because she took off with Katmandu back to the cars at this time claiming she had blocked in her car. With this sort of prescience she could be dangerous. The trail went up the hill and by stages down to the Devonport Leat with the front runners well wrong to the right and the back markers leading the way to the north. The sawdust was lost somewhere along the leat but Deadly found it down the hill and off up the other side towards Longaford Tor. This seemed like madness to me and so I headed towards the footpath leading south, only to find Alistair; on only his second run, doing the same. But this sign of intelligence was but a shadow, because although way behind, he turned to follow the pack. I plodded back to the road still hoping I would pick up sawdust but to no avail. As I made my way slowly along the road towards the cars, a distant light shone on the Beardown Tors hill. I felt a warm glow inside: Here was I a short distance from warmth and comfort and there were they about two miles away, in the dark, and most of them without torches. The simple pleasures are the best. Apparently there were reports of IAT? being found atop a hillside, with a torch, but I can only assume that he must have been rapidly abandoned, due to his very late arrival at the Plume. It is nice to see him getting back his reputation after several years of normality. I can only think it was the 'DANGER AREA' notices on the map that attracted Maximouth to these parts of the moor, and quite right too. Character building stuff, just leave my character alone, though. We met up with Tokyo Rose in the Plume of Feathers, and it seems she has taken up a Social Membership of the Hash.The ties are still strong, though, as she claimed to have got her hair wet. This is believed to have occured when she wound the car window down when driving along the track out to the moor. It has to be said that this type of hashing has its attractions. Jan of Tamar Valley H3 made the mistake of calling in to see us. After some in depth opinions from Deadly, about TVH3 she realised the error of her ways. We offered Roger to her, if at any time TVH3 wanted to reduce their numbers, but the cure was worse than the disease. We missed Hubcaps but this was clearly not the night when Algernon Montmorency Clarence Ffothoringay-Smyth (or Goofy for short) should be out. I didn't see the Fferrett all evening, although this is not unusual. He times his visits to Andorra to perfection. Once more into the breech dear friends.
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