Scrum Muffin laying a flour trail in hascombe for the Guildford Hash House Harriers

On Monday November the 5th Scrum Muffin and I (Little Pecker) got to set the hash run with the Guildford Hash House Harriers. Naturally we chose the Greensand Way area near our houses and having ‘cased the joint’ on the previous Thursday evening we arrived at the White Horse at Hascombe armed with various things to lay the hash around 6pm.

As we ran the route in the dark (me navigating and using my big torch) Scrum Muffin had bags of flour and would lay the trail leaving blobs of white flour to follow and also circles of flour where the runners would have to run out various footpath choices before finding the right one.

Our Fish hook 5 Hash Trail mark in flour

Scrum Muffin and i have previously run a hash with the Portsmouth Hash House Harriers and they introduced us to a ‘fish hook 5’ mark which means that the first 5 runners that find the mark have to run to the back of the pack. We placed one of these about half way through the run.

As we got to the 3 mile mark the run opened out into a field and we stopped to set up some fairy lights and leave 30 bottles of beer at a secret and surprise location the runners would find later.

Having dumped a total of about 5kgs of flour we finally got back to the car park around 7.15pm ready for the actual run to start around 7.30pm.

As we were the ‘hares’ for the run Scrum Muffin donned glowing flashing bunny ears and off went all the 25 or 30 runners who had shown up for this run.

Scrum Muffin wearing bunny ears on the Hascombe Bonfire Night Guildford hash House Harriers run

The first 1.5 miles was almost entirely uphill ……and very very shiggy.  Shiggy is a hashing term for mud….lots of it. I had waterproof socks on up to my knees and couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It was a clear night too and the temperature quickly fell below freezing.  We left the Greensand Way and headed round Hascombe hill.

Newbie Pete running up near Hascombe hill Hashing with the Guildford hash House Harriers

There was the usual chaos. Very little calling from runners to other runners to let them know when they had found flour and once past the fish hook 5 sign (which was utterly ignored despite the briefing) I started to run as hard as I could to get near the front so I was there for the ‘surprise stop’

G Force Loves shiggy and hills when hashing

Just to the foot of Hascombe Hill is a ‘secret’ Stone Circle that isn’t shown on any Ordnance Survey Map. We had planned a ‘beer stop’ there and had fairy lights twinkling on the central stone in the middle. The Modern Order of Druids erected this stone circle around 1995 and it is apparently called the Dragonstones Circle.

Taking a beer stop at the Stone Circle near Hascombe on a Guildford Hash House Harriers run

Once most of the runners had caught up Scrum Muffin got a few sparklers lit to give things a bonfire night feel.  Hashers are bad enough with beer and flour so we wisely avoided fireworks (the field has livestock in too)

Lighting the sparklers on the Guildford Hash House Harriers Bonfire night hash

After a few more minutes we were getting that ‘standing round on a godforsaken hill in the cold’ thing so we packed up all the rubbish and put the sparklers in a tin and ran on again into the darkness.

Scrum Muffin and Sparklers

Once we had skirted round the edge of Hascombe Hill we got to the traditional ‘On In’ sign hashers leave to indicate that you are near the end of the run (and near a pub)

Little Pecker at the On In flour mark in Hascombe

We noticed that ‘Hasher X’ cleverly used all of her boot in her car to get changed in whilst we had a circle and the hares were forced to drink beer (and I was in the sinners circle again for some spurious reason)

Yeh..Hasher X knows big doody

Then it was time to have a drink in the White Horse at Hascombe  where we got our usual warm reception (they kept the kitchen open just for us after 9pm) . One of the staff there was a former hasher in Russia so he understood our weird ways.

Scrum Muffin and Little Pecker in Greensand Way clothing in the White Horse at Hascombe post hash run

It was great to take people again on parts of the Greensand Way and I always enjoy the hashes with ‘surprises’ the most. We got lots of compliments on the run despite all the shiggy. For the second time running I laid a hash that would outfox Popeye and for the second time running it was a night he couldn’t make it.

Third time lucky

On On !

Little Pecker