Ryan Incider and Kundun the dog Liz Simon Brian C5 Spot Motox Greenfly Motormouth Hashgate Centaur Dwight Julia and baby Sam Glittertits Pissquick Soapy Snowball Stripper Dribbler and Paddy the dog Canopener Miranda and Emma the dog Foghorn Septic Dumper Baldrick Cap’n Haystax Cheating Nooky GBH Shep and Gnarler the dog Clive Hookey Julia Dr. DoLittle UsedRubber Squirrel Richard Linda TT2 Florence Zebedee Uncle Pete (carrying Ryan) Tania Debbie Flash Scrumper Lorraine

It was, yet again, wet and windy. Which was entirely appropriate given that today's theme was babies! To celebrate the infant prodigy Ryan's first birthday Incider, Simon and Liz (the doting parents) had set up the Baby Run and, as usual, had excelled themselves in the dressing-up department. All wore adult-sized Babygro suits - one blue and two in pink - apparently bought from a dubious website that caters for that sort of thing. The back of these garments had a flap with two buttons and Incider had thoughtfully worn her plastic 'bare bum' shorts so a splendid pair of rosy cheeks peeped out through the gap. Various dummies 'prambulated' damply through the car park and Shep toddled about bow-legged from the enormous and disgustingly stained towel that he was wearing as a nappy. Greenfly exhibited all the driving skills of a tiny tot when he almost 'crêched' his car forwards into the kerb. This did not go un-noticed and he was duly given a smack on the wrist by the RA later at the Down Downs. Little Ryan himself was hoisted on to his Uncle Pete's back in a plastic aqualung cover with a transparent window. The little fellow had an excellent view of everyone else slowly soaking in the rain. We were joined today by a fair smattering of the North Wilts Hash, some of whom had only arrived back from ski-ing at 2:30 in the morning. There's dedication for you!

The Hares wasted no time in pointing the On Out and we found out why soon enough. We went up a track and hit a false. We went down the road and hit a false. Dwight, Greenfly, Centaur, Motormouth and I stonked up a hill…and found several falses. We were getting confused. The rest caught up and we all yammered and chatted for a bit. Even the walking Julia pushing young Sam joined us. A decision made we headed back to the car park, wagging fingers at the smirking Hares and bearing off through the back of it. Dwight, C5, Motormouth, Foghorn and I got quite far before we hit a load more falses and backtracked to finally get it right and emerge out of the other side of the blasted car park and hack off up the hill to try and catch up. This set the pattern for the Hash with the FRBs losing the plot each time, thus allowing everyone else to catch up. Sounds like the right gameplan to me. For instance, Greenfly had sped off ahead up the streaming road with me in lukewarm pursuit. A check appears. "Hmm." I think. "Perhaps I’ll head off up the hill." Off I go, slip-sliding up this mud chute desperately seeking flour (in fact it was wood shavings). ¾ of the way up a "View hallooo." echoes from C5 and Greenfly with a firm encouragement to ‘On On’ along the road. Down I come. A mass of people start finding falses right left and muddy centre. CanOpener tells us his old garden is just behind the next mud hill. "It’s a right-hand trail." Asserts Cheating. Oh no it isn’t. Back we come to the bottom of the hill again where Simon tells me the first blob is "Just a bit further on from where you were." I thank him politely and turn again to the hill with a stoicism honed from years of Hashing. Still, I got to chat with a few of the North Wilts people who were very pleasant and we eventually all made it to the regroup that Motormouth and I had spotted earlier while in the car on our way to the Hash. Cheating for some reason appeared, running towards us from a different direction. Were we surprised? Not really.

We dallied in the drizzle for a fair old time and Zebedee, Motox and I did a bit of glad-handing with the North Wilts bunch while Incider and Simon sucked their thumbs and nuzzled their comfort blankets as the rest of us kicked our heels. Finally satisfied they split us into Long and Short trailers and off we went again into the shiggy. Centaur got caught by an early tricky false, mud-sucking gingerly into a cow-pocked field. Then Shep first tried a little French knitting round his legs with Gnarler’s ever-extending but not rewinding lead, followed by a minor pratfall in the shiggy which left him with a fine handful of pigeon (or possibly curlew) poop. He duly gave Gnarler a jolly good stroke and pat and we were off again… all right, he didn’t really.

This particular long trail turned into an excellent off-road mud and puddle hack with most of us keeping fairly together. We reached three (yes, three) arrows pointing left into a field that had all the springy firmness of a well-rotted victoria sponge cake. The viscous surface clung to our shoes like, well like s**t to a blanket since we were on the Baby Run. And none of us had brought a trowel. We staggered onwards, getting ever taller and leaning forward at alarming angles. It was like wearing Vivienne Westwood shoes. Amazingly we made it to the road and I spotted Foghorn and Cheating short-cutting ahead of us. Or so I thought. Somehow they were the ones on trail and had found a check. The luckless Greenfly buggered off in the wrong direction so I pasted off after Baldrick, guessing that he was right. And so he was. We road-raced along the soaking tarmac, flattening several worms in the process, until we got to the outskirts of the village. Greenfly had caught up again by this time and we decided the two blobs close together were just too obvious from the check, opting instead for an uphill track with a bit of necessary emergency resucitation at the top. Fortunately, we were right, this being proved later on as we met Scrumper and Lorraine who were coming the other way! The buggers had apparently arrived late again, finally figured out the On Inn and decided to run some of it backwards! We saluted their sheer determination to Hash – despite turning up too bloody late.

A bit of a cruise down the hill for a change saw us turning back into the pub car park where a quick change ensured we were soon amongst the beer and out of the rain. Despite the damp weather I thoroughly enjoyed this trail. The Hares (especially Liz with a knackered knee) had obviously worked very hard putting in all those falses. The pack largely stayed together and the FRBs were confused. What more could we want? Oh yeah; another one in this countryside in summer please.

Primadonna RA Motox made us all wait for the event and finally awarded the following :-