Shops and restaurants carefully avoid the words “Mothering Sunday”, partly to escape the earlier religious sense (mid-Lent, Laetare Sunday), but mostly because they have invented from Mother’s Day an imaginary Father’s Day “tradition” to boost their sales.  The hash seldom emphasises this day; we should, our future requires families and youngsters. The trail we followed was entirely set by women, mothers or not [both are]; Miss Bean had other commitments, so Too Posh and One In The Eye stepped in at the last moment and came up with an excellent trail. 

Oh, right, very muddy, admittedly, but what else is to be expected in early March? And I write as one less entitled to do so than usual, having accepted the short cut past our pub, so the long final loop escaped me. My excuse? Returning promptly to Solange, with delays on the roads even worse than I had feared.

  Shades of Spingo, of course. No one can set a trail from Flanchford Road without thinking of Spingo, and much of today’s trail was familiar to us all, but still, attractive and challenging, with a back check at the far point of our adventures that took a while to solve, with One In The Eye observing us sardonically. Le Pro took a tumble, quite dramatically, in the abundance of shiggy just there, with his mind perhaps on the Italian rugby team in Rome.

  Plenty of women with us today; I did not see Fish and Chips after the start, but Short Plank kept up very well, and Chastity Belt did plenty of front-running. (‘IsKnees was among us, walking gallantly).  Atalanta even started with us at 11 am, mirabile dictu, though of course that meant we saw her only occasionally.  Sir Ray re-appeared, which was good news, though he seemed to leave most of the checking to others; Veggie Queen was at least as prominent as Belcher.

  Do I count today’s occasional drizzle as rain? I do not. My rule, that on Sundays in Surrey between 11 am and 1 pm we get rain very seldom indeed continues to hold good.  I do recall a report written decades ago by Strumpet which referred to us hashers as drowned rats, but since then we have scarcely ever run in a downpour.  Long may this last!

  Muslim-bashing seems to have acquired a new respectability; which is partly understandable. There are, evidently, Muslims whose violence and intemperance trigger hostility. Several countries with Muslim majorities have governments which behave very badly- notably Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.. (The 1960s massacres in Indonesia had little to do with Islam). So let us remember countries where Muslims are the victims of vicious repression – the Uighurs in China, the Rohingya in Burma, even the poor fishermen of Sri Lanka, though there it is mostly Tamils who are victimised. In this country it seems difficult for some people to accept that both Hamas and the Nethanyahu government are to be blamed for the tragedy unfolding in Gaza, so we get increased hostility to Jews and Muslims – obviously by different groups. “A plague on both your houses!” is very much a minority attitude. Christianity began with the poor, the nonentities, even slaves, whereas Islam began as a successful military liberation; on the other hand the Holy Koran is much less warlike and violent than the Old Testament. Killing in the name of religion disfigures centuries of European history; the most peaceful and civilised centres of culture were in Spain and North Africa, where Muslims, Jews and Christians lived and exchanged ideas in harmony.

  On On, FRB

Heroic haresses

[Ed: huge thanks to the hares who stepped up at short notice, and our thoughts are very much with Ms Bean at this difficult time.
On on]