A large chunk of Guildford Hash turned up and so did… Chuck 2Bob Puddleduck Bev Baldrick Hashgate Wally Itsyor OldFart Shirtlifter Paella Spot Handful Einstein Speedbumps Bomber Tom Uptake Dafdodildo Mr. Blobby Mrs. Blobby Utopia Lynda Cloggs Ian DK Lonely and Beaver the dog. Latecomers were - GBH CircuitBreaker Florence Zebedee and Cheating arrived last of all just to collect the money for the Thai feast afterwards!

First of all I’m sure you will join me for a very big thankyou to Florence (assisted by Mafia on one occasion) for writing the Gobsheets while I was off having a damn good time in the U.S. of A. I must say I am very sad pleased to be back amongst all your happy, smiling and in some cases manically grinning, faces. The picture is of one, Sam Adams, who was not only highly influential in assisting America to throw off the yoke of tyrannical British rule but has also lent his name to an excellent lager beer brewed in Boston. Many, many bottles of the delicious Sam were necked recently by yours truly. God bless America!

Well the Military Museum was very well signposted.… if you were coming from the South. Slightly less so from the A30 direction although we got there in the end. Mind you, there seemed to be a slight paucity of BH³ members, that is until Mr Blobby arrived with a car full of asylum seekers. Actually, I’ll revise that. They were more likely asylum escapees. The usual Blobby crew debarked, easing the springs considerably on the Blobmobile, followed by the vertically unchallenged Ian who unfolded himself from the back seat with considerable difficulty. Wally appeared, wearing a blue boiler suit with ‘Wally’ emblazoned on the back, on his head an inflatable plastic fool’s cap – you have to feel sorry for his wife, don’t you?

Chuck called the motley bunch to order and explained that, since we were a mixture of BH³ and GH³ we would be using South Hants rules. Eminently sensible, we felt. This meant that three blobs were On and what we know as a bar was a false. Seemed simple enough. On Out we went.

Over the road and into the woods we sped, initially led by some GH³ chaps – until we hit the first check. I lucked out (a quick Americanism there) for the first and only time tonight and Dafdodildo and I brushed our way through the wet leaves and grass. For indeed it was a tad soggette. Overnight rain had shiggied up the trail quite nicely. Our lead didn’t last long as we hurtled off into unmarked areas for no known reason. But we soon caught up and hit the first of many checks. From here every time we hit a check I got it wrong. Sometimes with Dafdodildo. Sometimes with 2Bob and Puddleduck. Sometimes with Baldrick. A different person each time but the same bleedin’ result. However, no complaints, for it was all off-road and all the checks kept the pack nicely bunched as the gloom began to fall.

We trotted through bosky, fern-filled glens desperately trying not to trip over hidden stumps and holes and popped out on to a forest track. I was surprised to see a soldier in camouflage treading warily towards us, weapon in hand. I greeted him cheerily with a merry "Good evening friend soldier. Out for a booted stroll?" Although he gave no verbal reply I got the distinct impression that, had he done so, it would have been along the lines of "F**k off you big-nosed bastard. I’m supposed to be under cover!" Baldrick assured me the fellow was harmless as he "had a plastic one up the spout". I decided not to chase up this particular line of enquiry and trotted on, slightly bewildered.

We followed Shirtlifter and others to the regroup where OldFart and I discussed his leg, said appendage being tightly gripped by an elasticated doodah at knee level. I gave him the benefit of my own recent surgical experience, embellishing with some fictional details: woke up on the table to hear the surgeon discussing gender alteration techniques, nurses stubbing out fags in my belly button, unable to walk for weeks, oh the pain etc. etc. He turned a satisfyingly green tinge just as Uptake butted in to take the mickey out of poor old blokes banging on about their aches and pains. Somewhat of a liberty since he had a cartilage out not so long ago and gave me the same ‘green tinge’ treatment! It was something of a night for bad legs as Dafdodildo confirmed he has managed to duff up a ligament. This was his rather pathetic excuse for ‘not running as fast as usual’. Fortunately, Handful was at the Hash and she’s got very nice legs so I perused them – purely for medicinal reasons and to take my mind off the hairy, knobbly objects I mentioned above.

We left the regroup and almost immediately became rather lost. Even Uptake couldn’t find the trail despite taking a massive shortcut and telling everyone who could hear. I castigated him about it and he stated he ‘had to have some front’ to do so. I agreed that he had quite a lot of front and just managed to escape his headlong rush.

Somehow we all got well off the trail and into thick foliage before (amazingly) picking up the trail again to find that somehow GBH and CircuitBreaker were in front of us. Rather confusing as no-one had seen them at all up to then. Mind you they weren’t as late as Zebedee and Florence who had to run round the whole trail on their own, ten minutes behind everyone else. And even worse was Scrumper who had sat in the wrong car park for a while before giving up and going into the nearest pub! This is becoming something of a habit for him.

Chuck and Fruit’n Nut then caught us all out with a splendid series of checks and falses that had us bounding about all over the place and, in my case, being awarded 5.3 by Ian for a rather enjoyable trip and rolling tumble half way into a puddle. Dafdodildo only got a 4.9 for slipping and not falling but it was enjoyable to watch all the same.

Apologies for not getting the RA’s names. I was tugging on an errant sock as the early Down Downs started so things were slightly rushed.