A surprisingly cold morning - to start with at least. And then it rained! No-one wanted to leave the cars, but it didn't last long. It was Dropped Ball's 15th Birthday Hash. We welcomed 5 new comers, including three international visitors ("Moses" was one) who were friends of Groucho. Kate (who has hashed with us some years ago), and 4-year-old son Arthur, were also greeted. The two brother-hares (Dropped Balls and Fallen Boobies), along with Mum (Holeinone) promised us a lot of "ducking and diving" on a 3 mile trail, a sweetie stop, and then some birthday cake to finish things off.
We set off, on not-the-most-obvious paths, a trend that was going to continue. They weren't wrong about the ducking and diving as we made our journey through the carpets of bluebell and flowering wild garlic. (At least my shoes won't smell of cat-pee any more...). The paths were extremely slippery too. But that didn't stop young Arthur, who was extraordinarily fast and nimble, not put off my the hills and mud... a hasher in the making!
The sun decided to bath us in its glorious rays, but the sweetie stop of fizzy sweets, Starmix and chocolate buttons was rather windy! But we were soon making our way back to the car park via a high and muddy route at the top of the woods. Getting to that high path required a steep scramble to climb, with Beanbag down on all fours and blocking out the sun for those of us behind her! It actually turned out to be a mere 1.6 mile trail, but professionally timed - back just after midday. We sang happy birthday in the usual tuneless manner, and enjoyed the bannanna birthday cake, as it began to rain again!
Next week's hash at Newton Woods, Newton St Cyres.
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| Dropped Balls and Fallen Boobies |
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| Hash flash with the birthday boy (centre right!) |
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| Hash birthday cake |
View Stoke Woods 11/5/14 Hash in a larger map
