Congratulations to Gatecrasher and SUC!!!  Wonderful trial (Gatecrasher) and wonderful pub suggestion (SUC).

Gatecrasher was laying the trail around the pub as the hounds arrived.  How he had run it, laying all the falses, and then run it again with the pack, I don’t know.  Before setting us off he warned all the runners about the animals on the trail as he had hidden flour along the route and found it riddled with holes when he went to use it!  Especially as we went as far as Blenheim on the way out! Oh, sorry, different Blenheim.  Anyway, we set off out of the pub and up our first hill.  There were many more to come.  Where were all our young, fast runners?  What sort of excuse is “I’m running the London Marathon”?  Us oldies needed help and it came in the form of Low Cost.  He has run with us before at the behest of Ringer and will hopefully join us regularly as he is starting to train again.  We ran across Horspath Common before running this way and that through Shotover Park.  The parents among us reminisced when we got to the sand pit!  This is where St Bernard caught us up.  He had been working late and managed to catch us up but had had to run a long way to do it as we were not hanging about.  He had not worn the Supergirl pants as he was not keen to run along the footpaths by himself with them on.  He wasn’t able to stay for Hash Words so knew he’d have to wear them again next week.  We went in and out of the trees, across the moorland, up hill, down hill, along two sides of Brasenose Wood and back into Horspath to the pub.

The pub welcomed us and we had a large bar to ourselves.  Very quickly after our arrival the chips arrived in vast quantities.  To top it all off the beer was very cheap.  Definitely worth another visit.  Twitcher was also waiting for us at the pub.  The post code had taken him to Wheatley.  On finally reaching Horspath he stopped to ask directions to the pub of a chap using his mobile discussing the flour he had found outside his house which he believed was marking it out to be robbed!  Twitcher explained his misconception in exchange for being pointed the right way. 

CS took on the role of Master of Ceremonies and named our two latest hashers.  Sarah had not been seen to make any mistakes or be mean or rude to anyone so was something of a good two shoes.  So she is now to be known as Mother Teresa. 

He then moved to Carlos.  Rather a different story here!  We have not seen Rachel since the first Tuesday hash.  Had Carlos banned her from coming along?  There is one famous Carlos – Carlos Santana.  But this is too good a name for someone so bad so he will now be known as Carlos Saltana (or Saltana for short).

Finally, Zorro produced the paddle of rebuke.  No-one had seen it on the trail – because he had forgotten about it and left it in the car!  Maybe he should have kept it for another week but we were not sure he would ever remember to run with it.  He hadn’t seen any misdemeanours so passed it to Gatecrasher for feeding the rats on the trail.

A great evening.  Here’s hoping the rest of the summer will continue in the same vane.

On On 

Hare:  Gatecrasher

Hounds:  Professional Peach, RSB, Nora Batty, Rear Admiral, St Bernard (for most of the evening), Hutch, Rubber Sole, Carlos, CS, Hotlips, Big Stiffy, Lemony Snickett, Wimpey, Pressganger and Qualcast, Eric, Scrubber, Zorro, Uptown Girl, Boozer, Low Cost, Sarah and Bella and Twitcher

Date: 19 April 2016

Distance: 6 miles