Exhausted

Caboose Hashgate Cerberus Billy Bullshit Shitfor Desperate Swallow Iceman Quack Foghorn Leonore CIAC HeyBabe Whinge TC Dutch Paula Itsyor Fiddler Dunny OldFart Nick Russell Nick Gail Fran Kathryn (see, I spelt it correctly!) TT3 Tapeworm Stripper Lonely Posh Bomber Nigel Sam Rebecca

There’s A Long, Long Trail A’Winding…

Tonight’s turnout was definitely a touch down on usual, despite the balmy, almost tropical evening weather, with clear skies and an arc light sun. Many of BH³ were enjoying the delights of the Cornish Riviera near to Bude, shacking up willy-nilly with each other four-to-a-bed and all the pasties they could handle – though ShutupWally, the self-elected pastie baron, had perhaps on occasion not quite, shall we say, delivered the goods. I was lucky enough to spend a weekend with this crowd of amiables who were partly unknowingly benefiting from the peerless organisational skills of Septic and Dumper. You know, if the current bunch of Government underachievers were ever replaced by these two we’d have the NHS, education, inflation, immigration and global warming sorted out in a couple of months. Things ran like clockwork, underpinned by military-style precision. We can imagine the scene on a romantic evening at the Seward household.

Dumper: “Darling? Sorry to bring it up old thing but it’s July.”

Septic: (Checking her diary) “Oh very well, darling. It seems all to soon since last year but I can just fit you in the 18:30 slot. Three minutes should be enough. I have tennis shortly.”

Dumper: “Do you think I could start now old thing?”

Septic: (Sighs) “Very well. I’ll just be writing out the BH³ food requirements for next Christmas dinner. Trousers down. And… begin.” (Clicks a stopwatch)

Of course, I would like to point out that this Gobsheet 1543 is owned, managed and is entirely the responsibility of The Royal Berkshire Hash to whom any libel writs or blokes with baseball bats should be delivered.

And so I pulled up not ½ a mile from the pub next to a wandering Caboose, and, in my friendly way, offered the fellow a lift. “Bog off Hashgate, you limp-wristed troll. I’d rather stick pins in my eyeballs.” Replied the equally friendly Caboose. Or something vaguely similar. The lad has this thing about walking and catching trains, you see. Fair enough, I thought, revved up the old charabanc and planted a car exhaust polar bear size carbon footprint on his front, leaving him blinking like a panda in a coalmine.

The first thing I saw in the car park was Billy, carrying the cross he had been given last week. A precedent has now been set, with each carrier of said cross having to write their name on it. Actually, I’m a little worried about Billy. Whilst chatting with Desperate and Shitfor he used the word ‘despondent’. Three syllable words are a mite unusual in the Billy vocab. He enunciated it like a sprinter running his first 10 mile race – very fast with the ‘despo’, a noticeable elongation of the ‘nnn’, before an eye-glazed, tongue-between-the-teeth stagger to the finish line and a very slurred ‘den…t’. Let’s wish him all the best with finding out what it means.

The Hares frightened the life out of the Pack by telling us the Long Trail was 8½ miles long. We slunk out of the car park with dragging steps, slack jaws and staring eyes. 8½ fricking miles! Wosgoingon? “I rather wish they hadn’t told us that.” Said Dunny. We all nodded in dumb agreement and attempted to trot. Those who had any sense followed OldFart. The fellow was on a purple roll; guessing every Check correctly while the rest of us staggered uncomprehendingly and incorrectly behind him. There certainly were plenty of Checks and, although many of us had run this trail in reverse during the Red Dress Run, we were still confused by the Trail. Foghorn so much so that he couldn’t remember even taking part in February and twisting his ankle.

The Regroup seemed to appear quite quickly, even though we were all panting and sweating from our exertions in the humid air and hot sunshine. Then the real ‘run’ began. This was the site of the Long and Short split, the Long being a series of yomps. Either teeth-rattling slogs along tarmac/concrete, knee-jarring trips through hard, rutted earth trails, or long, long fast cruises across 100-acre fields. The lead changed everal times as we were caught out by cunningly-laid False trails. Fiddler seemed to have it sussed, only to lead his old dad Itsyor astray by the railway bridge, leaving the way wide open for OldFart to stream, once again, magnificently into the lead across the bean field. We were beginning to pray for Checks as each ½ mile power dash squeezed out yet another litre of sweat and tightened up the hamstrings. Quite how Billy managed to carry that cross and keep up is beyond me. He did complain of stiffness in his wrist later. Though most of us ascribed this to something else. Which brings me to an (interesting?) insight into the mental machinations of the mind of your Scribe. Those of you with a prediliction for narcolepsy may wish to look away now. Those who don’t have a prediliction for narcolepsy are highly likely to develop one. Given the religious symbolism of Billy and his cross and an earlier conversation about Thomas Hardy I thought, oh so cleverly, “Ho ho ho. Why don’t we rename Billy, ‘Immanent Will’?” Anyone still awake? No, I didn’t think there would be.

**@##@%$! *£%^%”$£! and @~|^&%)£*!!! That’s the second time tonight the ^$*&@”~*&£% electricity has tripped out. One has to wonder if the Fates have it in for one. Particularly since, this second time, only that part of the house wherein I am scripting this breathtaking prose lost power.

Bomber and I got caught out on various False trails towards the end so ended up at the beer stop fairly late, after a reasonably long slog across field and track to where Nick had kindly placed beer in an ice bucket atop a table laid with a freshly laundered tablecloth. Certainly an ‘A’ for presentation. This was where we bumped into a very fresh looking Rebecca and Sam, who had turned up late, pretended they couldn’t find the trail, sneaked a couple of drinks in the pub, then trotted over to the beer stop. Who can blame them? Those of us who just couldn’t be bothered with the last loop walked the few hundred yards back to the pub where that inestimable fellow Stripper lent me 20p so I could buy myself a drink. What a gentleman. Take this as an IOU.

Many thanks go to the Hares for laying the (long…) Trail through this lovely countryside. When you think about it they probably ran even further than we did!

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

Stand-in RA Shitfor manfully presented the Down Downs.

The darn recording machine has decided not to record the Down Downs so I hope I have remembered these correctly:-

Posh got a small schooner of sherry which she downed in a dainty gulp. Btw she and Bomber both ran very well in the Stockholm Marathon with Posh only ten minutes or so behind her man!

Billy presented The Cross to Nick.

Russell was renamed… um, something to do with agencies. Apologies, Shitfor will tell you.

Vlad, Drac and Blowjob were given Down Downs as the Hares and the lads were soundly beaten by the lady.

Up and Coming