A late writeup for a short weekend in Provence (or ‘It ain’t over till the fat lady sings’)

  Most write ups are in this fashion: hare lays terrible trail, some of the pack get lost and do stupid things, eventually almost everyone ends up at circle and watch down downs, go to the pub, dregs finally leave pub and go home. Repeat for following week. This was to be different and is the reason for this late writeup, if indeed it really is late. SH3 overseas away events are not quite as common today as in the distant days of the annual vineyard runs, so Provence was a welcome variation on the usual Surrey locations. An overseas weekend is also the opportunity for things to go wrong for the organisers (been there, had the counselling) so was this to be a case of Coq Up Au Vin? Non!

  The chat on a Provence weekend Whatsapp Group did suggest trouble ahead with panic over whether 24 gallons of beer each, every day, was really quite enough. There were also a series of questions for Bigfoot that he had already answered, though not the one about whether to fake orgasms. That one was quickly deleted and I can’t remember now who it was from but I do remember the answer was ‘yes’.  A late heatwave in southern France and parts of Spain had pushed temperatures in some places to over 40C but in Provence only to the mid 30s, but for those arriving by car saw an electronic motorway sign near Aix en Pains, the only one in English, saying ‘Heatwave conditions, drink lots’. This seemed perfect advice for a hash weekend.  The Bois d’Amont venue was on a hillside above Cabris, with fantastic views out over the Riviera, Antibes and towards Nice, Monaco and occasionally the distant hills of Italy while the Med glistened in the hot sun and damp SH3 hashers glistened by the pool.

  The weekend was co hosted by the Riviera hash, Bruno (Riviera) and Bigfoot co haring the trail for an unusual (for SH3) a slightly cooler 4PM Saturday start. The pre run circle instructions were simple, a 7K full trail in flour with falsies marked by a X, or a reverse arrow, with W1 or W2 marking short cuts, either with (W2) or without (W1) sip stops, trail always to be within 700 Km of a check circle. The Out led up, quite a long way straight up, with the trail on a straight track vanishing into an infinite distance up the relentless slope, then left and the second crossing of a road. We were high enough for the road sign to warn that carrying snow chains was required in winter, then on into the mix of woodland and scrub, skirting round an area where the traditional sport of peasant shooting was under way. The limestone geology around Cabris meant the scrub was a Mediterranean type called Garrigue which is tough enough to withstand intense summer sunlight and regular droughts, coming to Surrey soon perhaps. It is also resistant to Hashers and being rather prickly, encouraged everyone to stay on trail, even the underlying leaf litter was prickly.

  Once popular in the UK in the 70s and 80s, after a couple of unpleasant pornography discoveries, today Garrigue litter is rarely mentioned. The sip stop at a Neolithic dolmen is a first for SH3, the nearest dolmens to Surrey are just off Bluebell Hill, in darkest Kent. As far as I could make out, no one found the W1 shortcut, while those that did not find the W2 shortcut wished that they had, and an allegedly infinite trail loop seemed to cause some difficulty. Even so, on reaching the clearly marked On INN, the front walking W2 shortcutters bravely ignored it and tried to go round again but decided on balance that perhaps a cold beer was a higher priority.  After descending The Slither, a sharp bank of loose soil, it really was On Inn to the beer.

  Usual down downs for hares and sinners, including one to Lucy, a very shy and quiet lady from Michigan who may possibly be American. Apparently, understanding advanced concepts like ‘north’ and ‘south’ is entirely optional for Michiganders and should she run again on an SH3 trail she is surely a candidate for naming ‘Geographist’.

   The Feast followed. Such meals are always a challenge to cook on a charcoal barbeque, so given that it was a truly magnificent Feast, with wine and beer flowing in plenty, a particular well done to Bigfoot and his culinary helpers.

 The next day, Sunday, was promised to involve a gentle stroll through the woods to the Chevre d’Or restaurant in Cabris village for lunch, where all meals were pre ordered. The start was exactly the same as the trail from the day before, except that on Sunday the vertical ascent after The Slither went on and on an up and up. ‘Only sixty metres more’ said Bigfoot, well perhaps it was, straight up, but as we arrived near the Crois de Cabris, leaving a trail of sweat, the way was barred by a chain. ’Poste de Guet’ said the sign, ‘Defense D’Enterer, Hashers aussi’. Since this sign was only in French, obviously it only applied to French people, so it was ignored and we went on up to the top.

  The hilltop Poste is the forest fire lookout point for the area and the friendly lookout on duty was quite happy to explain how it all worked and got his enormous equipment out on the table to show the ladies. Very large binoculars they were too. He told us that fires from BBQs and cigarettes were still seen somewhere in the area every day. From there, at 2600 feet, the view was even better than from the venue, on clear days apparently Corsica could be seen. For us mountaineers a summit at 2600 feet is nothing, a mere ten percent of Annapurna II in the Himalayas but as it was the summit, it was then downhill, this time really through woods, all the way to Cabris village. The woods are relatively recent and the path led across numerous ruined stone walls from previous centuries dating from when the area was farmed.

 Early arrivals in Cabris promptly found a restaurant called the ‘Chevre d’Or only to find that it was the wrong Chevre d’Or, the result of a family feud being two almost identically named restaurants right next to each other in one tiny village. Whether it was family feud sabotage we will never know, but the pression biere at our Brasserie Chevre d’Or was unexpectedly off and it was amazing just how quickly the bottled beer ran out, well amazing to the restaurant staff anyway.

  The pre ordered meals were also a challenge to the staff as it seemed there was a mismatch between meals and those present, almost as if someone had dropped out at the last minute. With rose and red wine flowing as a very acceptable substitute for beer, lunch in the village square was a relaxing experience.

 The return to the resort was easier than the woodland walk, but still a fair way uphill in the afternoon heat, with a short vertical scramble back to the pool where Bonn Bugle tried to push anyone still standing into it.

   Monday was a recovery and tourism day, allowing for visits to fragrant Grasse and for SBJ and Blue Suit to find that Google Maps are not entirely accurate in France.

  Tuesday was Departure Day and so every move had to be carefully planned in the best Inspector Clouseau fashion. Arrivals on Friday had been by plane, train and car, but not without incident. Shit for Brains and No Nookie somehow broke the train from Nice to Grasse while Petal, egged on by Shiva, was checking to see if speed cameras in France really work at speeds over 200kph, only to break the water pump in the car engine. A Merc breaking down anywhere near Nice is appropriate because it was in Nice that early car entrepreneur Emil Jellinek tied up with Daimler to sell cars named after his daughter Mercedes, who also lived in Nice. The Mercedes tie up with Benz came much later, but Jellinek frequently complained to Daimlers in Germany telling them on one occasion ‘your manure wagon has broken down on schedule’, suggesting not much has changed. Delays in getting an ancient engineer out of retirement to hand machine a new water pump from titanium threatened to leave Petal on his own for a week, but then the UK military submitted a flight plan for their latest Sopwith Camel biplane and it broke the NATS Air Traffic Control computer in Swanwick, grounding most afternoon flights to the UK. The broken component is technically called a thingy, it is about so long, is painted grey and has one RS 232 connector at each end. When replaced, the new thingy was found to have flat batteries and as these were D cells, which hardly anyone uses or sells, there was another crisis. A replacement set of batteries was found eventually at Arif’s ‘24 hour convenience store, Kurdish barbers and money laundering service’, but the damage was already done with aircraft and crews now everywhere except in the right place. Exactly how Raffles inserted the flight plan for a Sopwith Camel into the NATS system is still subject to an Official Government Investigation, but it did mean Petal had more company than expected. Hashers intending to fly home that afternoon were stranded, some after sitting in planes for hours, and in the absence of any trail, attempts were made to use initiatives. Perhaps crossing the Alps by elephant or pogo stick was considered and rejected because more conventional means were finally settled on.

  Flights were booked to the UK via Munich and to Athens while Shit for Brains and No Nookie, who really did want to go to Greece, promptly caught a train to London via Paris. As it very slowly dawned on the stranded Hashers that there were far worse places than the French Riviera to be stuck for a few days, it became a competition, not a competition to be first back but to see just how long airlines would take before getting them home. The winners were those who spent most days on the Riviera at airline expense or those arriving home with the best sun tans.

  A week had gone by since the first arrivals in Cabris, but the Group chat still had entries and photos arriving from Surrey Hashers spread all over Europe, a few still stranded, some on holiday, others wending a leisurely way home. Your Scribe came back via Avignon where the totally bare state of the Papal Palace interior suggested the last Pope living there had gone through a very messy divorce indeed.  A week after it started, the short weekend was still not quite over. Just how long can a short weekend away be? Had the Fat Lady sung? Who indeed was the Fat Lady? By Tuesday, now a full week after Departure Day, it looked as if the last SH3 survivor in Provence was Petal, now living happily with a French saxophonist rugby player and that suggested the Fat Lady is called Mercedes. Will Mercedes ever sing again? Only time and a personal appearance by Petal and Mercedes in the UK would tell.

  Now that’s what I call a proper Hash weekend!  A massive well done to all involved.

On on,

Eveready