Humperdick is a good hare and when I set off from work, I was certain we were in for a treat… Even if it was going to be a brief one as the run wasn’t going to start any earlier! (As the circle later turned into a Thai lesson “ดื้อ” springs to mind. Anyway, with little hope of finishing in daylight, we set off on Humper’s run.
The checks were excellent. Clearly well thought out, and sneaky – I would have been proud of them and been chuckling to myself as I spied on the erroneous hashers from behind the bushes – only this time I was a runner, not a hare! First check, of course I got it wrong. Foolishly I ran back and got back to the lead at the 2nd check, which I also got wrong. It was a trend – the first to the check were likely to get it wrong. The landscape and our history were begging the run to go clockwise around to the right, but the hare disagreed.
Humpers found some good trails and checks to take us back over the other side of the road. I ran along with Horny remarking at what a great run it was (a bit premature). We hit a gate that had been sneakily electrified, and the brief shock was compounded by the skiddy sticks. Bugger! We headed ominously towards the hills, and when finally the good trails ran out the hare didn’t give up, and forged a creative path straight up the shiggy, along a ridge and back down. There was no trail, but apparently the hare had assumed there would be.
We got back down, and inexplicitly the hare decided to take us back up again, another steep climb, only to cut over to the left and cut back down again. why? We’ll never know… Graven meanwhile had thought better of the trail and reappeared ahead of us having taken a much nicer trail along the bottom of the hill the other side. If only the hare had found it!
It was getting dark and we were hacking through shiggy… It was dark and we were approaching a road… It was pitch black and we were heading along the road, On-In and beer was waiting.