QH3 Run 857. The Old Volunteer, Carlton, Nottingham

RUN #857

Date : Monday 26th January 2015 (19:15)
Location: The Old Volunteer (NG4 3DQ)
Hare:Butt Plug
Weather: Dark, dry and not too cold
Pack size: 5

The Old Volunteer is not a pub I can remember running from before but it is an excellent pub to set a hash trail from and we highly recommend it. Good selection of real ales (well it is the Flipside Microbrewery!), friendly staff and good food. The complimentary pork pie put this in as an earlier nomination for 2015 On Inn of the year.
This was one of the longer journeys I have had to make to a local hash - 1.5 hours to get there on account of having to pass through Derby and Nottingham at the tail-end of the rush hour. It was indeed a small select pack tonight with three having made the trip from Derby (Malteaser, Durex and Trianal), one from Lichfield (Captain Oates), and our local hare Butt Plug. Disappointingly, there was nobody from Nottingham. 

Five unhappy face checks were placed where a pub had shut down

Having whinged about the time taken to get here, we couldn't complain about the weather for a January trail - mild and dry.
The hare started making excuses before we set off. Something about the roads looking flat in the map book. This is Carlton so we knew what to expect, certainly not a flat run. The hare also warned us of some unusual hash marks on the way around, namely, 'unhappy face' checks and some embroidery stitch flour blobs. The former it transpired marked the sites of now closed pubs (The Windsor, The Earl of Chesterfield, Toby Jug, Carlton Hotel and the Blue Note (formerly the Cavendish)). The embroidery stitch blobs across a driveway where for the benefit of Hash Haberdashery. Does the skill of today's hare know no limits. He actually managed to mimic the classical 'running stitch'.
If you were on an urban hash with only three others, knowing there was lots of checking to be done, who would you choose to be with? Wifey of course, but Captain Oates ('I may be gone for some time') and Trianal ('now you see him, now you don't')? Fears were realised in the first 100 m when these two headed off up the road missing the obvious flour to crossover the road in another direction. However, things did improve as the hash progressed probably due to the numerous hills up which the pack found a common pace, slow.
Down a long hill stretch the break-away group of Malteaser, Durex and Trianal came a bit unstuck when we all missed a check which left us puzzled for a while when the flour stopped. This gave the hare and Captain Oates a chance to arrive at the On Inn first, though not before Butt Plug had shortened the last bit of the hash trail by strategically placing a wheelie bin over a bar.
Only three Down-Downs were awarded by the Curate (Captain Oates) standing in for the RA in view of the latter's haring duties. Malteaser got the first DD for calling 'On On' based only on a blob of flour and two fag packets. Trianal got greeted by a youth during the trail as though he was his long-lost father, an event worthy of the second DD. And finally, the hare got thanked for a good run, indeed 44% considering the flatness of the trail. Most of you missed an excellent trail and On Inn.

That's the way I saw it.....Durex

Trail as done by Durex