Thursday 30 August 2012

Back again

So, after a lengthy summer break, I am back.  It seems ages since a good crowd of us made our way to Guimaraes to bid farewell to seven leavers.  It was a memorable run around the city and its margins and I think we added nicely to the sights on view for the considerable numbers of tourists out on a sunny Sunday. 

Nothing, however, stands still in hashing (except, of course, for Mrs Slocombe at a checkpoint) and so here we are again, welcoming newcomers and pounding the streets and tracks as though we had never stopped.  Last night we assembled at a previous starting point, at the back of Campanha station.  Confusingly, Mrs Slocombe arrived on time, whilst Hard Drive was thirty five minutes late, but this role reversal did not continue and normality was soon restored, the former resolutely avioding checking and the latter swiftly into Ancient Mariner mode, with GTA (Greg) his first victim.

Handily, everyone ran pretty fluently, with plentiful checkpoints enabling it all to keep together, so we made our way round in good time.  A good deal of it was on well-trodden ground, but there always seems to be, even in a city as relatively small as Porto, somewhere new to discover and so it was with this one.  It was designed to give a reasonable view of real Porto for the newcomers, so we headed into the centre, crossing Santa Catarina twice, passing a sign from a year ago en route, gave the shoppers something to stare at  gaze at admiringly, and got as far as Aliados before effectively turning back. 

Special mention must go to Francois for getting lost.  He found that, in trying to find us again, people were able to remember seeing us pass by.  Funny, that.  He also was named, after lengthy deliberations that seemed all to be focused on the idea of pimp, Pimp my Dongle.  Titchy Percy had a down-down to mark being eighty (his knee, meanwhile, is a hundred and sixty) and then we repaired across town for the bash at the end of which we marked Bunbasher's actual birthday.

So, an hour and a quarter (ha, those who doubted my ability to keep the length down, ha and ha, I say!) of jogging about alarming the good people of Porto, beer in piss-pots and tuneless singing.  Hashing is back; and a jolly good job.

On, on.