TVH3 The Words for 3rd April 2023

To Hel(tor) and Back

The Bridford Inn & AGPU

 

Run. No. 1963

 

HARES: Forrest Stump & Wood-Lend

 

 

 

Who wuz there: Forrest Stump, Wood-Lend, Wood Lend's friend (very fast), Man-Pig, Shitfaced, Soapy, Melonpicker, Palmolive, Beefy, Pisswell, Piltdown Man, Georgy Porgy, Checkmate, Big End, Triple Jump, Pork Torpedo, Horny, Ablesemen, Triple-Jump, Cheerio Beerio, Threesum, Beeflicker, Slip-on-Me, Ernie, Strap-On, Strap-Dancer & Arkangel.

 

CIRCLE

We arrived, early, only to find that the car park was already almost full......but not with many cars that I recognised. In no time at all, the car park started to clear. It transpired that The Bridford Inn is the only takeaway for a ten mile radius and it is proving surprisingly popular.

Eventually, everyone got parked, though it took some people several attempts before they got a spot that was large enough to be able to open their doors and get out. More about that later.

The main topic of conversation in the Circle centred around food i.e. who had ordered what flavour pizza? Finally, Forrest-Stump delivered on what he had threatened last week i.e. a long trail, "It'll keep the AGPU brief".

 

TRAIL

An eight mile Long. Where on earth were we going? More importantly, who was going to do it? All of our usual FRB's were either missing or injured. No Warm Front, Psycho or Wet Johnny, and Beefy is still recovering from a sprained ankle. Still, last week's trail setter, Beeflicker, was in attendance. Would he take the FRB crown? Yes, as it turned out.

An early Long/Short split just to the left of the Church, and that would be the last time that the Long's saw any of the Shorts for the next hour and a half. The Longs went left and through the newish, and partially duckboarded, woodland path. The Shorts' and Walkers' continued up the footpath that runs along the left hand side of the churchyard.

 

The Longs' exited the woodland walk along a fenced footpath at the edge off a field before arriving at an arrow on tarmac. A right immediately followed by a left had us heading northwest towards Heltor View.

 

Beeflicker was well ahead followed by Woodland and friend with Man-Pig fourth. In the far distance, we could see Heltor avec a Hasher atop its summit. This proved to be Shitfaced. No, he is not a reknowned FRB. Therefore, "How so?", you ask. Simples. He had shortcutted by means of the internal combustion engine and drove himself up to Heltor.

 

But where where the Shorts and the Walkers? In front, surely? No. By the time we arrived at the view point at Heltor Rock, the only Hashers present were Shitfaced, Wood-Lend & friend, Beeflicker, Man-Pig and Big End. 

 

Retracing our steps on the way back from the view point we did bump into Horny, Pork Torpedo, Melon Picker and Palmolive. I assume that they were on the Shorts but no-one else was within sight.

 

The view point completed, the next 5 or 6 miles would be a game of Big End and Man-Pig playing catch up with Wood-Lend and friend who, in turn, were playing catch up with Beeflicker. Indeed, we caught up with Beeflicker on several occasions as he must have got every check wrong! Wood-Lend had laid the trail so Big End and I decided that staying behind him would be a wise move - assuming, of course, that we could keep up with him; which we frequently could not.

 

The first check past Heltor was at Plaston Green. Beeflicker had already found a second check not 200 yards distant. He carried on checking along the lane that is the direct route to the Blackingstone Rock. Big End checked out what looked like a well worn, but unmarked, footpath along the edge of some woodland whilst Wood-Lend hopped over a gate and into a field. The cunning (read lazy) Pig followed. This was obviously private land. However, Forrest had mentioned something about permission to cut across private land so this had to be it. And so it proved to be. 

 

The trail ran parallel with the path that Big End was on but he was on the wrong side of a hedge. He had to double back and catch us up. He should have pushed on as his track rejoined the trail only 150 yards further along.

 

The trail left the field and then followed a track past Carrapitt and Little Hay Farm. At Laployd Barton, the track joined a lane and the trail took us right and towards the Blackingstone Rock.

Before arriving at the Rock, we all ground to a halt at a peculiar mark. We had a choice of Long and Shorts to the left and through pine woods or XL? Surely an X is a false trail murmured the Pig. "No", said Wood-Lend who went on to explain the XL stood for "Extra Long". For some unknown reason, all faces turned towards Man-Pig....questioningly.

 

It was 8 o'clock. About half an hour's daylight left, if we weren't under the cover of trees. It was so, so tempting to take the shorter route. "Extra Long", I said. Oh why, oh why did I say that? Big End raised his eyebrows and Beeflicker smiled.

 

"Does the trail bear left at the top of that yonder ridge?" I enquired.

"Maybe?" was Woodlend's guarded response.

 

And so it was that the Famous Five (Foolish Five more like) embarked on the uphill climb towards Blackingstone. Once at the Rock, it was the obligatory climb to the top, a quick photo, and then down those precariously steep stone steps. Thank goodness for the handrail. 

 

The trail now stayed on road and a fairly level run past a microwave transmitter for mobile phones and then left and downhill. At it's lowest point, there was another Long/Short split at the northern end of Kennick Reservoir. Wood-Lend said that both routes were about the same. Again, we went Long.

 

The trail followed the eastern bank of the reservoir until we arrived at a check. Nothing kicked out so I doubt if the Shorts had come this way. The trail went left and uphill and into the Laployd Plantation proper. With tree cover above us, it was now torch time. Another check at a T-junction on the woodland path. This time it was the right-hand fork that we followed past Hollowpark Rock and, after 700 yards, another check. This one was a left.

 

We were now on the fenced footpath that is plagued with roots and stones. Mind your footing or you will turn your ankle. The footpath took us down towards Hole and Little Tor Farm.

At the junction at Rookery Brook, we joined up with the Shorts' trail and encountered the "On Home" sign. Indeed, only 200 yards before the pub we caught up with Slip-on-Me, Melon Picker, Soapy and Palmolive.

 

A quick check of my elderly, and consistently under-reading, Garmin revealed 17 miles. 17 miles! Some halfwit hadn't reset it from Saturday's A2B.

 

Thank you Forrest and Wood Lend. Beeflicker, Big End and the Pig enjoyed the jaunt. But were there others on the Long also? Back in the pub, there was no sign of Beefy or Pisswell. In addition, the bar staff were looking for the owner of a prawn pizza. This turned out to be Strap-On who was also missing, together with Strap-Dancer. Nevertheless, in almost no time at all the MIA's all appeared - unscathed. Phew.

 

DOWN-DOWNS

Forrest was RA for the evening. He commenced by thanking the pub for the beer."Hoorah!". He then asked what we all thought of the trail. The usual moans, groans and lies. namely, "Too flat and too short".

 

Over to the Awards. There was no-one present who actually had an award to give away. However, Smellie had given two out of three of her awards to Piltdown man to bring to the Hash. Three awards! What on earth has she been up to? We're only just into the new hashing year and she's already laid down the gauntlet for others to challenge her attempt on this year's Pillock of the Year award. Also, where was the third award - the Pillock Shirt? In Prague on its holidays apparently.

 

With no awardees to dish the dirt, it was sneak time. Triple-Jump was the first to dob someone in. A story of someone getting a wet backside sliding down the foothills of Heltor. Who was the culprit? Slip-on-Me. She was awarded the Turkish wedding hat. A note for the "wet bottom" as Forrest couldn't quite get the word "extricate" out of his mouth.

 

The next whistleblower was Beeficker. He dobbed in the absent minded driver who merrily went down a road that's been closed for ten years only to find himself driving around the WBB claypits. The Songmeister decided that "Why was he born so beautiful...." was appropriate for the absent minded Man-Pig who has now been re-united with the Bacardi Hat.

 

Two halves of beer left. Were there any more stories? Yes. Forrest had one. All had observed Pork Torpedo's heroic efforts to get his huge van into a tiny parking space. This was a brilliant piece of parking. However, there was a fly in the ointment. He hadn't got enough clearance to get himself out on one side nor Horny on the other side. Spying an exiting pizza collector, after some several hundred full lock left and rights, he managed to get into an even smaller space!

Now Pork Torpedo was just about to take his punishment when Palmolive piped up, "You've got to hear this". It was Palmolive's ring tone; a recording of a quite tuneful Pork Torpedo reciting "Hold it in your hand Mrs Murphy". Absolutely brilliant.

 

Now, there was a Hasher who, by rights, should have got a Down-Down but he was very quiet. He had been very late in getting to the pub and so he had to do the trail on his own. Why was he so late? Had he read last week's Words and taken them literally and gone to Bradford? Nearly. He pitched up at the Cridford Inn. "It must be the right pub. Just look at all those Hashers - Big Foot, Shorty etc".........errr....wrong Hash. Arkangel has turned up at Haldon hash by mistake. Hmmmmm!

 

AGPU

Despite Shitfaced's attempts to bring some decorum to the proceedings the AGPU was the usual chaos. Threesum provided hard copies of the accounts that no-one looked at. Any existing committee member that wasn't present was unanimously re-elected. Any existing committee member that was present was also re-elected whether they wanted to be or not.

The only exception was a replacement dictated by technology or, rather, the lack thereof. Wet-Johnny is the On-Sex, or is it Social Sex? Never mind. The position can only really work if you have access to Facebook and the TVH3 Facebook page in particular. Apparently, Wet-Johnny is not on FB. Slip-on-Me very kindly volunteered to take up the position. Her first task? To write The Words for the evening's run. Her first reaction - point blank refusal. You, Madame, are an ideal candidate for Mismanagement. The role is yours.

 

NEXT WEEK

Next week's Hash is at The Highweek Inn, Highweek, Newton Abbot. Our Hares for the evening are Ernie and Strap-On. Will they actually leave the Highweek Inn during the trail or has their trail from The Court Farm set a precedent? We shall soon find out.

 

On-On to next week.