This was a most unusual trail, not for the venue, well used by Dr Death and other hares, but for the flour.  There were almost no blobs when we began, though the hare added plenty as we went around.  Instead we cast about wildly until told where to go by Simple; I have never known a trail so dependent on the presence of the hare.  Much of it we have hashed often, whether from this car park or that by the church (which we almost visited), though the closing mile was less familiar.  It has been a while since we ran past or over those well known Lovelace bridges.

  We were offered three trails: short cut, “Wimps”, or Rambo; all credit to Simple, everyone ended coming in together, exactly as hashers should.  The R trail proved rich in shiggy, churned up by horses during our wet winter, and ingeniously took us north when we had expected south (we went round in a great loop, rejoining the W trail).

  At the last check Simple was asked to indicate the solution; he said “Not till the FRBs are all here”.  Someone said “Well, FRB is here”;  Doug commented, correctly of course, “He doesn’t count any more”.  So let me pay tribute to two hashers who still do, First On The Pig, and also J. Arthur, who went on to prove it there and then by solving the check.  Today we saw once more Pullthrough and his chum, and also Moonwalker, who joined the Rambo runners, deep in conversation with Hash Flash. So far as I know Dr Death did not verify what Simple had done with “his” territory, but he was in the car park.  [Ed – I encountered him several times while trying to catch up on no flour – he quipped that following him would be less effort!  Clearly his local knowledge was an advantage.]  Missing in Action is almost as assiduous at the checks as Bigfoot, though she was put out that several of us who had gone too far at a check carried on parallel to the pack who had found the real solution.  In fact we eventually found flour ahead of the pack, Bonn Bugle to the fore.  This was where the short-cutters left us; the eventual solution for R and W runners was so far from the check that even Bigfoot failed to find it.  Perhaps it was Petal, joining us late.  Raffles was not the only dog today; two new members brought a boisterous and excited Alsatian.

  Until I was 25 or so I thought of myself as English; but Americans in what was then Tanganyika explained to me that I was British. I don’t seem to think about it very much these days: how do you see yourselves? Other than Speedy Humper and Le Pro we are mostly from England, but apart from “Tommy Robinson’s” crowd few people seem to dwell on this aspect of our identity.  Which is the land of hope and glory, England or Britain? Rule Britannia certainly emphasises Britain (“at Heaven’s command”!) In Rugby League the supporters of England’s team still tend to sing about hope and glory. They have real imagination; Martin Uffiah, a wing, got the handle “Chariots”.The “Great” in GB means only that we are not from Brittany, Grande Bretagne as opposed to Bretagne.  The original Britons were Celts, the original Angles from the Low Countries; more of us are descended from them than from Celts, now largely in Wales.  So perhaps we are English rather than British.  The French certainly think so, very rarely speaking of les Britanniques; in my wife’s area memories of conflicts from past centuries are still strong. “Les Anglais ont fait des ravages” is heard at every historic site you visit.  Embarrassing!

  On On, FRB