The day after a severe race is a good time to go out on a short undemanding run to loosen up and check that everything is in working order, so, on Monday I decided to go on a Hash with Bristol Greyhounds. There was a time when I went out with the Greyhounds every week, but, lately, for a number of reasons, I have hardly been out at all.
I suppose I ought to explain hashing. It is basically an old fahioned paper-chase or a game of hare and hounds, where one person – ‘the hare’ – sets a trail – it is usually laid in flour rather than paper nowadays to avoid littering the countryside – and the pack follows the trail. The modern form of the ’sport’ was popularised by ex-pats in Malaya and spread from there, with the additon of some bizarre rituals that probably originated in Oxbridge or some such place.
This particular Hash was from the White Horse in Pilning, which has been cut off from the village by the diversin of the M4 over the second Severn Crossing. For some reason I like this pub, which was another reason for going there.
After the usual rituals, we set off along the cycle path alongside the motorway, but we were soon exploring a more interesting path along the grass alongside The Pill, which here has the appearance of a large drainage ditch or ‘rhine’ as such ditches are called in Sonerset and Gloucestershire.
At the next bridge, we crossed over into a series of fields full of eminently runnable grass. There was a bit of a hiccup, when we emerged onto a road and had to run alongside the major road between Avonmouth and the M48, but we were soon back on the grass, and I was congratulating the hare in my mind for finding some paths i had not run on before – always a bit of a bonus.
Then we emerged on a minor road in Northwick village, which has a church tower and a graveyard, but no church.
To be fair, we had been warned that the next section was problematic – but there are some principles (there are no rules) in hashing – and these seem to have been thrown out of the window.
Firstly, it is the job of the hare to lay a trail. Secondly, it is his job to make sure that no-one gets into difficulties following it.
In this case, the hare had been frightened by a field full of heifers and had not laid a trail through the following fields. To compound the error, he sloped off back to the pub on a shortcut along the road, leaving the pack in a situation that he thought was dangerous. It wasn’t – but that is hardly the point.
The situation was not helped by the pack calling ‘on’ when there was no flour. The net result was that a new hasher had to deal with an angry farmer. Luckily, this was the only mishap, and everyone got back to the pub, where most people snsibly got stuck into the scrumpy.
