City of Exeter Hash House Harriers

Another year, another Gathering - and we were back at Pinkery 4 years after the original visit.  The Naughty Hashing Fairies (car number plate is NHF) - aka the Bullbait and Child Catcher family - overtook us on the M5, and we followed them all the way up the north Devon link road and up the lane to Simonsbath.  We admired their pumpkin on the parcel shelf (see photo later!). They were in turn following Spocky and his trailer, so when he took a left turn off the lane, we were torn about whether to follow him, or stay with the Sat Nav.  We decided that he must know the best road to take, but it turns out that he was going to the Saturday pub, the Poltimore Arms. So we backed out and continued!
About 20 minutes later, we arrived.  The centre hasn't changed much since we last visited. A few more Damp Patches, and two new ovens with The-Great-British-Bake-Off sliding doors, but only one kettle... there were going to be queues at breakfast time! More surprising than anything else was …

After yesterday's 'Storm Brian', a hash in the woods was also going to be interesting.  Lots of leaves on the ground to make things slippery and difficult to judge.  But it was a good size pack: great to see the return of Wobbly and Oddbitz, and it was baby Albert's virgin hash!  Later, at the regroup, we reenacted the photo on his day of birth - from 6 weeks ago when he was still in Puss' tummy.

It was one of those 'coat-on/coat-off' days, certainly one of the coldest Sunday hashes this year.  But given some of the hill climbs that were to follow - coat off was definitely the right decision.  After a couple of successful checks, Rocky and I managed to find ourselves front running, along the edge of the woods and away from Exeter.  The the first of the fish hooks allowed the others to catch up.  It was all gently downhill at this point, but then started getting seriously slippery and we headed steeply down towards the road.  Along the bottom path in the woo…

Words by Rocky this week.

Today, we went for a run at Haldon Chalets; the layby (not to be confused with the café car park.) Some people did not get the message about the car park swap such as: Dobby, Spocky, Woodpecker, Happy Snapper, Bullbait and family, Tampa and I could go on and on.

After a while, everyone was finally at the right car park. Happy Snapper however was a tiny bit late but caught up with trail. First of all, we went down the main road and directly into a debris forest then we came to a long-short-split. It was either a really quite sharp prickly way, or straight on down the path, the longs went straight through the bramble bush. When we reached the woods again it turned into a Parkour course I don’t think anyone would have ran, as the trees’ branches were so low, after that we reached a clearing to find a check, we went downhill and it was certainly autumn. Then we found ourselves looping to go back through the forest. We re- joined the shorts. We went down a rocky lea…

Words by Bollards Thorverton Parish Council had kindly allowed us to use the village hall car park so Twin Peaks was there to greet us and wave us through the gates.  The sun was beating down; not the usual October weather -but welcomed. The trail was three and on, with several long/short splits; the first at the beginning of the trail where the shorts went right, (or was that left?) just out of the car park.  The longs faffed around for a while, crossing over a ford, then back, generally ambling around until they decided to go in the direction of the shorts, then found an interesting diversion down a bank and along a stream until a cross appeared and everyone turned back, slipping on the rocks in the process and makings sure that no-one exited the stream dry. Back on the road again, the trail took a right turn along a disused road.  Another long/short split took saw the longs gravitating towards, and into, the stream again, when the actual trail went along the edge and up onto an old…

Hares are required for the the following dates

26th November **I need a confirmed venue by 20th October**
3rd December
10th December

Groucho will be putting in an order very soon for City of Exeter H3 hash haberdashery.
You can choose your own colour, design and style.  Take a look at the catalogue on the Personal Touch website http://personaltouch-emb.co.uk/pt/catalogue.htm.  There are no prices on the site - contact Groucho for details (exeterrock@yahoo.co.uk) but the information and photoa below give some examples of what we ordered last time.

SS10 Mens T-shirt - £11.00 (clothing)  + £3.00 (add name etc) = £14.00
JC002 Performance long sleeved T-shirt - £10.00 + £3.00 = £13.00
SS14 Adult Hoodie - £16.95
SS6B Kids T-shirt - £7.00 + £3.00 = £10.00
SS10 Mens T-shirt - £11.00 + £3.00 = £14.00
JH055 Ladies Full Zip Hoodie - £18.95 + £3.00 = £21.95
JH050 Mens Full Zip Hoodie - £18.95 + £3.00 = £21.95
JH050B - Kids Full Zip Hoodie - £15.75
SS77B Girls T-shirt - £7.00
11970 Boys T-shirt - £7.00
GD05B - Kids T-shirt - £7.00 + £3.00 = £10.00
SS9 Adult Sweatshirt - £14.50
SS27 Adult Polo Shirt - £13.80

There was a really good turnout for today’s trail.  Even those who had been celebrating Strappo’s 50th managed to come along. Dobby had laid a three and on trail which was “quite short”* to take into account the delicate disposition of those who had been celebrating.  There were numerous long/short/walk splits and two fish-hooks, each requiring 6 to return to the hare. The trail started by crossing the road and heading through some gorsey terrain.  There was plenty of shiggy too.  There was some confusion after the long and short trails re-joined with a spurious cross that no-one seemed to know what to do with.  We could hear the pack calling on ahead so decided to head towards the noise.  I’m not sure that was the right thing to do, but we soon picked up trail again and crossed a stream before heading into the woods.   The hare popped up to guide us across a road then the longs lost the trail again but the back runners managed to find the right way. Anyway, eventually we got to a s…