Potato Head’s birthday run, but Daddy stepped up to put the leg work in. A vehicle scout on Thursday, and a scout/set on the hash day – Skiddy looked worse for wear and not excited when he got to the A bucket. He looked dejected – a sure sign things hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped…
We set off with Skiddy kitted out like a live hare – and from the hare brief, I was off looking for an “Imaginary Circle Check”. I did my best, but my imagination struggled – half a km into the run and I was still imagining paper! Fortunately Piggy found a trail and we set off. We scrambled through some shiggy, and fortunately I got a couple of checks right. Finally I got one wrong and caught up to the pack as they were confused. There was a circle check – Piggy called OnOn, but threw his voice so the pack followed close to where he’d been, and after a while we found a circle check – around the same time Piggy found another one just 100m to our left.
Which circle were we looking for? I headed right and found trail – but the trail was at a junction and heading in both directions… It looked like we should have got there from a different direction and run around the corner. Kinda confusing, but Cumalot followed my call… Another 100m or so and I found a check back… Hmmm What to do? No sign of anyone behind me – had I short cut? should I clear the check? I grabbed the paper and went back to the junction where trail was going both ways. As I started trying to make the trail Skiddy was calling to me off to the right.
Apparently I was wrong – I suspected as much, and was tempted to just carry on, but Skiddy insisted I went back and did the long extra loop. He told me “go to the next junction and turn right”. I suspected it was inside information to help me get back with the pack, so jogged off down the trail, while Cumalot called On On behind me. Was she calling me, or just calling? With a huge quarry to my right, I saw hashers the otherside disappearing… Was I short cutting? I wasn’t at the junction yet… When I finally got to the junction I turned right, and right again towards the hashers I’d seen… Finally I sign of trail and some paper!!! No hashers, no footprints, which way should I follow it?
I went left, and there was a set of skiddy sticks perfectly intact. Hmmm Had I short cut again? Was I ahead? Should I fix the check? I picked up 2 sticks and headed back towards where I thought the trail had come from, and there was Miss Piggy, walking along with Superbitch. They were probably as surprised as me – I don’t remember the last time I ran into them on trail!!!! I figured the trail out and slowly picked off hashers – Superman, Does Nothing, Geisha Gash (who didn’t short cut). Man I was way out of this thing!
I finally caught up with Anything, Banana Wiggler and Stephen as we got to the false trail that I’d already found. Humperdick was grumbling his way back from it, which gave some inspiration to running harder. Around the corner and there was powder letters all over the trail. “ON OUT” “ON IN” “OH FUCK” “OH DEAR” “OOPS” – I have no idea what it said, or which way we should go, but it was clear we were supposed to follow the first 2k or so back.
I got to the road with Humps and decided to go around to the left rather than just following the out trail back. Humps decided to do the same to the right, but unfortunately for him there weren’t trails to the right and he got his exercise back and forth on the tarmac.