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Cycling Weekend in Honfleur 19th - 22nd May 2011 Please let BOF know if you do not want pictures of you or your children to appear on the Hardy's H3 website. Please click here for other Hardy's H3 Albums and here for Hardy's H3 Home Page. Pictures kindly supplied by BOF, Porkie Pikey, Buzz and Calculator Kid Eighteen members of Hardy's H3 and friends set off for Honfleur and gathered at a pub close to Portsmouth Ferry Terminal. In fact, typically for Hashers, we met at TWO pubs but, thanks to mobile 'phones, we did eventually all meet up. It was there that Bookends discovered that he had brought along two right trainers. Amazingly daft as they didn't even match in design!
Having all safely arrived at the terminal we then wondered if we would be allowed on the ferry as the LD Lines booking system is a shambles. It was not possible to book eighteen passengers onto the boat where some were travelling in a van, some were walking on and some were pushing bikes. Gravelrash had done her best to cope with the complications but it was only within a few minutes of departure time that the chaos was sorted - at least to the LD Lines booking staff's satisfaction - and we were allowed to board. Then we found that some of us were allocated seats when all of us had reserved cabins. More chaos. So we went to the bar and eventually we all ended up with a berth for the night.
Calculator Kid snatches away Willy's cabin key so that SHE would be sleeping in a corridor and not him. The LD Lines staff were patient and helpful but were clearly struggling to cope with a disastrous booking system - and it was clear that they had experienced similar problems many time before.
A beer or six in the bar calmed the situation down.
After successfully finding our cabins we awoke refreshed and moderately sober to cycle out of Le Havre to a picnic spot for a breakfast stop. The ride out of Le Havre was depressing as it is a huge sprawling industrial landscape. We eventually found ourselves a place to gather and eat on what appeared to be a bramble strewn waste tip.
Rosie found a convenient huge lump of plastic - yes it really was a dump! - and used it as a seat.
Calculator Kid was pleased to find a half drunk bottle of beer in the rubbish strewn around.
Ever the gentleman (he'd actually sipped it and found it to be disgusting!) Calculator Kid generously gives the drink to Jess and Boycie to share. After our continental breakfast it was back on the bikes and ON! ON! for the greatest challenge to our fitness and determination - the Pont de Normandie - a huge bridge over the River Seine.
In fact it saves an approx. 10 mile journey via another old bridge over The Seine so it was built more for reasons of national pride than traffic need. For a virtual cycle ride over the bridge please click here.
OMG! It was even worse than it looked! It was not far from the exit of the bridge to Honfleur so the immediate plan was to find a bar or two to quench our thirsts.
When the above picture was taken BOF was having a very embarrassing conversation with the guy on his left. This man had turned and said something which BOF had not heard clearly and thought this was a local asking him where he was from. In a very slow voice and wishing to practice his French BOF says "Nous sommes Anglais de Dorset qui est dans la sud de notre pays" To which the man responds in English "Actually, we're from Southampton" Oh Dear! What a prat BOF is! Whilst most of us were having a beer, Tsunami, Gravelrash and Willy went to the local supermarket to buy bread, cheeses, meats, etc., for lunch. We went on to a very pleasant public park on the outskirts of Honfleur to have our picnic lunch.
As the picnic was being laid out Rosie spilt the crisps over the sheet where we were supposed to be sitting. The prat!
In the park were busts of famous people (well, famous to the French!) associated with Honfleur. Below we see ABO admiring the bust of Francois Sagan the novelist of such masterpieces as "Bonjour Tristresse" written in 1954 when she was a teenager. Actually, ABO said he was admiring the bust but the picture suggests an altogether different motive for being behind the hedge!
We were pretty well exhausted by our struggle over the bridge and several Hashers fell asleep. A certain person I will not identify then thought it would be amusing to decorate the sleeping Hashers with chocolate, toothpaste and draw fake eyebrows on ABO - which he didn't discover until he got back to the hotel.
ABO totally unaware that he has fake eyebrows drawn on his face.
Similarly, Orgarinder was unaware that fake sunglasses had been drawn on her face.
Returning to Honfleur we booked into our rooms and wandered around this very pretty medieval town. Following are some pictures taken by Hashers. More can be found about Honfleur at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honfleur.
Our hotel
We all gradually drifted to a bar for pre-dinner drinks. Jess and Boycie had never tried alcohol (they are trainee Hashers) - they were satisfied with watered down fruit juice as seen below.
BOF's ultimate fantasy - a beautiful woman carrying beers and with a sexy twinkle in her eyes approaching him in a bar. Then he woke up. ON! ON! to the restaurant for a meal. A friendly game of Leap Frog was played but Rosie retired injured when he suffered a Bollock/Bollard collision - and the bollard ended up ripped from the ground.
Kipper shows us how to swallow a whelk...
...whilst Willy tackles the Fish Soup.
The next morning we set off for a day's cycling with the sound of the Organgrinder's cheerful melody ringing in our ears.
Buzz created below an artistic iconic image by photographing his shadow - very 'Le Movement de l'Art Surrealistic'. Shame about that backpack strap hanging down though. Does tend to turn an otherwise beautifully creative composition into a statement on his anatomy.
We were heading for a supermarket. However, after cycling for many kilometres up a mountain we arrived at a view of Honfleur and the Pont de Normandie which was pleasing. In fact we were rather relaxed until Wellie W pointed back down into the valley saying "Look! I can see the supermarket!" Sure enough, we had been bought all the way to the top of the mountain only to go all the way down again. "Putain de merde" we cried and decided to have a beer stop and Down! Downs!
Organgrinder got her Down! Down! because, as the ferry drew into Le Havre she looked around and said "Cherbourg has changed a lot since last time I was here" Yes - it's changed into Le Havre!
What it's all about - good friends, gentle exercise and a prat giving out free beer!
Gravelrash gets a Down! Down! for her organisation of the ferry booking.
Buzz was also asked to produce some awards for cycling prowess similar to those in the Tour de France. What does he come up with? The Peloton (look it up on Wikipedia!) became the Pantie-thong and was awarded to GTM. Instead of the famous Tour de France yellow vest - a pink cardigan with ginormous buttons was awarded to Rosie.
We set off to the supermarket but Calculator Kid had a puncture. He burst his rubber on a prick with disastrous consequences.
Everywhere we went there were masses of police - in vans, cars, motorcycles - the place was teeming with Gendarmeries. This was because G8 ministers were meeting in Deauville - where we were heading for our beach picnic - and every vehicle was being scrutinized closely. Any suspicious groups were pulled over and all documents were checked. And so it happened to us. The entrance to the supermarket was blocked by armed police guards who stopped the van and all of us cyclists. BOF, being as deaf as a coot, failed to hear the gendarme telling him to stop and was reprimanded.
Tsunami who was driving the van when it was stopped, was closely examined and her credentials were taken out and examined in detail by a succession of policemen. Eventually declared to be in satisfactory order she was allowed to tuck them away and we were all permitted to enter the supermarket.
Calculator Kid and Bookend had a fight over whose revealing cycling outfits were the sexist but settled their differences by agreeing that they were equally sexy. What a delusional pair of prats!
Nobody was sure what that bulge was in Calculator Kid's groin but everyone knew what it wasn't! After getting lost a beer stop was necessary.
Whose tight girly bum is this?
As we headed to the beach near Deauville Jess hit a pothole on a hill and went over the handlebars to end up in a crumpled heap in the road. It could have been really serious but she was wearing her helmet and suffered little more than shock and bruising. A nasty few minutes. Nobody caught this incident on camera but Jess's stunt double reproduced the event and showed how it is possible to get a lift in the backup van.
After a great deal of getting lost in Deauville we arrived at the track leading down to the beach. When Gravelrash and Wellie W had reconnoitred this trip earlier in the year they had driven to the beach - no problem in their car. However, now we were travelling with a van and there was a height restriction bar about a kilometre from the beach. The bar was 2.10 metres and the van was 2.20 metres high. So, how did we get the van to the beach?
Alas - that bit of magic must remain a secret because you never know who may read this website in Deauville! All that will be revealed here is that the van could not get under the barrier and yet it got to the beach. As Paul Daniels would have said "That's Magic!"
A pair of toffs did their picnic in style. "Oh do have some more champers old boy!" says Buzz.
The nobility of the Hashing elite - Buzz and Calculator Kid - distanced themselves from the oiks down the beach. They considered themselves to be Nobs but the rest of us knew they were Knobs.
Above and below we see BOF's attempt at artistic photography.
Organgrinder shows off her new stylish massive hoop earrings.
And so back to Honfleur for a relaxing bath then ready to go out for dinner.
A toast to Absent Friends - Bill Hooper and Cosy-T. Their untimely deaths are remembered at these times.
Will the oysters live up to expectations?
Give them a try whatever..
The oysters don't seem to be working yet. Best not to be impatient. When BOF and Organgrinder first met he took her to the 1991 Oyster Festival in Weymouth. Those oysters did work - three month later!
Above right - Organgrinder gets soaked when GTM washes his crab in the wine cooler water.
Rosie shows off his man boobs
Buzz shows off his talent for blowing up Marigold rubber glove on his head.
GTM has a go but it ends in disaster
Awards, Down! Downs! and a naming ceremony were then performed.
Kipper was awarded the cycling Pantie-Thong for not being around to look after his adoring missus. However, Lagerlout pointed out that on one occasion Willy had been complaining that he was never around when needed when Kipper was cycling immediately behind her!
Boycie was presented with the Cycling Jacket and Jess was given her Hash Nickname.
She was first restrained and gagged before kneeling to be named.
Jess is anointed in the name of the Four H's and named "L'Ass Over Tits" for her spectacular somersault on her bike.
We then amazed and amused the restaurant owner and staff with "Sunshine Mountain"
The owner and his staff joined in. "les fous excentriques anglais!"
And so a great day drew to a close. We went on to The Jazz Bar which contained many strange people - the males seemingly very keen to chat up Organgrinder. We then stopped on the harbour edge to see the Moon over the water - a fond farewell gesture to Honfleur.
The next day it was a 22 km cycle ride back over the Pont de Normandie to Le Havre. The struggle over the bridge was not made easier by a headwind. Going North the slip road onto the bridge is banned to cyclists even though there is a cycle track once on the bridge. Weird! We started up the slip road against the law but were spotted by a van load of police so we had to retreat. Even the police couldn't tell us how to get legally onto the bridge. However, we made it by carrying and pushing the bikes a long way over a rubbish dump which bought us under the bridge and up a narrow track. The ride over the bridge was quite scary with a very strong side wind and then the long boring drag back to Le Havre through the industrial wasteland. It was now time for a beer stop and to await the van. At this point Buzz thought he'd lost his wallet. After cycling back 5 miles to a rest stop he returned only to find the wallet in his bag! At the ferry port we had to repeat the long drawn-out argument with the booking staff about the complexities of our tickets. Some of us had two tickets each and some had none. With ten minutes to go before the ship sailed we were still in the departure area trying to sort out the mess that is the LD Lines way of operating. However, we made it and settled down for a 5 hour 30 minute trip back to Portsmouth. On the way a competition was run to see who had managed to make the best hat starting with 500 millimetres of knicker elastic.
And the winner was - "L'Ass over Tits". We arrived in Portsmouth on time and were all home after midnight having had a great - and, at times, exciting long weekend!
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