Sheffield Hash House Harriers

 

1369. 14th October - Monty's Batman, Robin Hood, Baslow

Begging, Bananas, Bread and Bolving

Pre 7:45pm, our hare MTB had out done himself on flour stinginess and had to go cap in hand to our landlord for a loan. Many thanks by the way to the Robin Hood and its landlord!!

                                                    Struggling Pubs face increased demands from Hashers

@7.52pm was about the time that the Crookes bunch turned up and the pack were long gone. I asked the friendly landlord if he had any flour to spare, he looked at me aghast, but confirmed parking was for free.

So off we set in pursuit of the others, there were two obvious directions, but MTB had carved out a third and off we set up the hill back towards the Sheffield road, which we incidentally did not take to get here, hence the tardiness.

Mudslide, ever one for a challenge, decided to rely on her night vision to climb the hill, fortunately there was a first aid kit waiting with the pack and a couple of medical ‘professionals’ to fix the damage.  Trunks was also on hand with his spare torch, so a patched up and illuminated mudslide took her natural front runner position and saved the rest of us lazy buggers from having to check too much.

                                                                ...and the moral of the story is

As fast as the latecomers ran, the trail was all up hill so we didn’t actually catch the pack until the hash rest, where ten of them were waiting for us. Will’s Banana cake / bread was the topic of conversation with a lot of pleasantly surprised looks amongst the pack. I can confirm it was indeed yummy, filling and two pieces were consumed. Lost lad looked more than happy to receive treats from an unused poo bag.

A glorious red mushroom was purposely left on the wall by one of the pack, but we’ll come back to that later. From there it was on on across the top of Yield wood and towards the glittering lights of Baslow where we spread out in the village to look for the route.

We inevitably found ourselves at the ‘Group Kissing’ gate into Chatsworth, I few open minded hashers squished themselves in, lost lad got caught up in the excitement.  Fortunately no fingers or otherwise were lost in the transaction and we all found ourselves in the dark and eery Chatsworth House grounds.

                                

                                                                Mind yer bits and pieces!

Jurassic style noises were heard from the woods, we all knew what they were but proceeded with some caution towards the treeline.  There were the occasional sightings of a fierce and protective stag with his doe Harem. The spectacular rutting / bolving season was underway.

I must break off at this point to mention that we do have greatness within our ranks, one hasher who shall remain nameless is a regional champion at bolving (…or bolving impressions?) and is immortalised by a plaque in some village hall around the Hope Valley. When last pressed on the issue she was too modest to give us a demonstration but confirmed, ‘It was a proud moment’. Local generic farmer and bolving enthusiast ‘Billy Cornfield’ was interviewed about the victory at the time and simply remarked, ‘It was Crystal clear there could only be one winner that year, she was Tipped for greatness but just walked away from the whole scene, a sad day for the sport…’.

Anyway, back to the trail. We made our way past the horny deer and annoyed sheep and headed up the Hill, it felt like the whole run had been up hill that evening, finally atop the hill and above the tree line the trail plateaued.

From there it was back in the direction of the pub, MTB surprised most of us with a new trail avoiding the long slog back up the road to the pub.  This new trail proved tight in places and eventually made its way down to the stream.  We were confronted with warning signs to avoid the damaged bridge, no handrails apparently, but as most of us were born before the era of intense ‘elf and safety’ we crossed anyway, there were no casualties. From there it was a sprint finish to the pub.

A great run, discovering some new paths, at 9.5KM it was at risk of been muttered about but with everyone back at a reasonable hour it was time to enjoy a beer and some post Hash Chat.

Special shout out to Milkmaid and Cummingtonite for filling up the diary on their debut press ganging.

Special mention to one of our hashers for arranging a post hash date in the pub and presenting not a bouquet of flowers but a shiny red mushroom to his companion. Apologies from my side for trying to get her to put her name in the diary.

Epilogue

A very satisfied looking Monty’s Batman was later seen returning three quarters of the loaned flour to the landlord, thus cementing his reputation as a spectacular conservationist.