NO MERCY LONG & SAVAGE SHORT aka VENI VIDI PASSUS SUM

# 1758 on Mon 3rd September at The Crown & Sceptre. Hares Poacher & Bluebird

PREAMBLE
An intriguing pairing of hares saw Poacher & Bluebird reunited in trail laying after a lengthy absence. The Crown & Sceptre also had been neglected and we had returned after a 40 month hiatus.

Several months previous, Poacher had persuaded me to lay a joint trail and I had accepted, believing that Poacher would forget the beer laden discussion in some already forgotten OD. But he hadn't and I had, dear friends, dreaded the awful day that I would have to lay once more.

In the event, I had little to worry about, as the youthful Poacher laid virtually all the trail, relying on me as merely the 'technical advisor', which suited me down to the very ground that I had trod for half a century and more. Without further ado, ON ON to the words then...

NO MERCY LONG & SAVAGE SHORT aka VENI VIDI PASSUS SUM
The trickle became a mini flood as hashers arrived from whatever bolthole parking space they had secured. Forty three was the count with the pub packed out with nigh on 50. It was like olden days at the Crown & Sceptre and Dave did us proud with the sarnies and mini pasties.

The tiny pub car park could hardly contain the rabble who awaited the 'Deadly Duo's'* dread delivery.... HA! Poacher proved to be the sensible one, imparting useful facts to the already aghast assemblage before the Supreme Pillock, suitably colour clash coordinated, struck fear into gentle and timid souls all. The warriors and young bucks screamed defiance - COME ON, GET ON WITH IT!

Out from the shelter of the car park they went, some fearing for their survival and safety. Poacher took charge of the 'No Mercy' longs and the 'Savage shorts' whilst the abomination led, Pied Piper like, the bewildered and confused.

A luxury indeed, pottering along the downs and it was a busman's holiday observing the hash descending to Little Oddicombe through telephoto lens. Winfield had taken a breakaway party of hashers down into Oddicombe woods to intercept the trail at the Cary Arms and we watched their gentle progress from the railings above.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch house, the No Mercy longs had smashed their way down the woods above Petitor cove (nudist) and cursed Poacher as they came to a dead end which had been sadistically converted to a thoroughfare and necessitated a ten foot vertical climb to escape. From there they joined with the Savage Shorts and descended onto Little Oddicombe and thence across the sandstone mud spill to Oddicombe, the Cary Arms and Walls Hill.

VENI VIDI PASSUS SUM**
The light was fading fast as the intermixed longs and 'savage' shorts survivors approached the southern tract of Walls Hill and the piece de resistance of the trail.. Either go short across Walls Hill towards the setting sun and assured safety of the pub or hazard the darkening doom descent through the cut and the anguish and danger de mort of the subsequent ascent.

There were some that were unexpected and some that were missing but every hasher and harriet that managed the last long were magnificent - it was a time of heroes and triumphant were those that emerged from the depths of Redgate. Te saluto, I salute you!

One by one they materialised from the dark: Beefy, Jay, Deep Throat and then the Ipplepenners Manopause and Wet Johnny, an unknown black clad lady, Going Down (whoa!) and Piddler. The yellow vested U Bend preceded a bare chested Ramboesque Wigwam - what a baptism for his SWEATEMBER CHALLENGE in memory of Migman - good boy Wiggers! There followed a torchless Wide Receiver and bringing up the rear was Forest and hound escorting two harriets.

Beefy's Strava failed but another GPS watch had the long at 4.6 miles with most out for over an hour.

DOWNDOWNS
SOAPY (Hashit shirt) the new budding author of Havoc's tale "Wherever I hang my Lead"
TEAPOT (Horsey Horseface hat) for asking if he should now "blow off?"
"GEORGY P. (substitute Checkin' Chicken hat) who took a dip in the sea".....
....but nominated SMELLIE for the DD!
JAY (Ipplepen crew) now to be known for ever as DUTCH RUDDER

POSTSCRIPT
The lay was long and arduous, the trail easy (for me) and the pub was something else. Long after the hash had dispersed, I sat down with the Ipplepenners and many a tale did we tell as we continued to sup with Dave finally throwing us out just before midnight and engaging in a mock kung fu fight out in the road with Dutch Rudder - you had to have been there to see it, magic.

Hey ho, ON ON to next week and the much anticipated Virgin Lay of Roxanne and Erection from where else? Yes, the Wellington Inn at Ipplepen.

*A Winfielder
**I came, I saw, I suffered.