Thursday, June 9

22nd May - Joneys Cross - Woodpecker

Well upon arriving in the car park with my travelling companion, Miss Twin Peaks, we noticed Mr Woodpecker sitting on the boot of the pecker-mobile looking like a character from Toad of Toad Hall slurping his morning cup of coffee. He greeted us and had that look of a satisfied hare, a job well done, I am of course refering to his trail. He revealed nothing, well a fully clothed hare won't, would he !
Somehow this hash produced a pack of 36 + hashers all, well nearly all, biting at the bit. We set off at the usual blistering pace for about 200m only to encounter the first of many Woodpecker specials, I refer to the dreaded back-check. The actual trail was not found for at least what seemed like five minutes, then it was on-on skipping over Heather, she didn't mind passing gorse, one female hasher remarking she had been pricked many times. Stop complaining ! After another five minutes of continual speed we entered a forest, whereupon Woodpecker, the hare, was at his most cunning. First there were the ditches, endless ditches, it was liked watching a series of long jump competitions, the ditches coming in all shapes and sizes, bit like the pack. Several hashers encountered problems jumping these ditches, several of whom got their feet wet. Groucho fell at the feet of Sore-Point who gave him a mere glance then trampled on her way leaving on spread-eagled Groucho to take care of himself. Birthday boy Paperwork complained of a having a headache, but he did have a party the night before, no sympathy was shown by the pack as this headache was self inflicted.
The same hashers voices could be heard shouting the usual hash words deep in the forest amongst them Boots-in-Puss, FF and Stat-Nav as we all ploughed on our way, but they did encounter the dreaded fish-hooks which was refreshing for those back markers seeing those FRB returning to rejoin the pack. After several long/short splits we arrived at the sweet stop where a very alert hasher spotted that Blobhoblin was with us fresh from his leg injury that had kept this "young lion " out of action for several months. Also whilst eating our sweets we, the pack, made way for a normal person plus dog to go past, only to hear the normal person remark "this what you do on Sundays is it?" The normal person was of course talking about/to Isoceles. Well I never, Isoceles remarked as we headed on our way once more, I didn't realise Devon was so small. We were out for just over an hour and the view of the car park was very welcome and even more welcome was the beer.Great hash Mr Woodpecker