Shipmates

Foghorn Uptake C4 C5 Gutbucket Hashgate Dumper Septic Mr & Mrs Blobby Utopia Spot Lonely and dog Beaver Judith Potty Dolly Iceman Butterfly Dribbler and dog Paddy Motox Cheating BGB Ms. Whiplash Salome GBH Libby Angus The Tremblers Baldrick HitchHiker Flash StraddleVarious and ShandyMan from R2D2

Single-Handed – Then All Aboard

The learner lorry driver trundled his way around roundabouts and crashed gears with all the languid aplomb of a man with plenty of time. Occasionally, he stopped and got out to assist an octogenarian over a zebra crossing, discussing the weather and the price of elastic stockings with the dear old soul. Whenever he approached the thirty mph mark he withdrew in horror from the breakneck speed to settle for the much safer fifteen to twenty. It’s always the same when you’re in a hurry, isn’t it? I fulminated at the ferret-faced f….. in front of me as we raced through the countryside with all the hell-for-leather, devil-may-care abandon of a two-toed sloth in a tree climbing race. Eventually, The Ship appeared and I slotted into the very last parking berth with a grateful sigh, only half an hour late. It turned out that the spot had only recently been vacated by Mrs. Blobby who was going to dispense the mince pies and mulled wine with Utopia. (Mr. Blobby rightly castigated me for my ungentlemanly conduct later.) So there I was – a car park full of familiar cars and not a familiar face in sight. Bugger. The Hares had obviously decided that latecomers required a bit of a challenge and had not laid a helpful arrow. I offered up a prayer for their thoughtfulness and spent a while speeding hither and thither. Eventually, I found an arrow up a lane artfully fashioned from a thimbleful of flour and laid carefully in the bed of the torrent flowing down the hill after the recent downpour. I figured I had virtually no chance of catching up with you pie chompers and wine guzzlers and this thought was reinforced as I hit the first bar and spent a pleasant but fruitless five minutes hurtling around a flour-less playing field. “OK.” I thought in desperation. “Let’s run over the bar and see what happens.” Bingo! A snow-white blob of flour rewarded my cheating after twenty yards. There was some real ankle-sucking shiggy en route. I’m sure you found it pretty hard going too. And then I hit the tarmac and started to make some time up. It was a fine cruise down to a footpath off to the left that had been turned into a stream by the rain. Years of Hash experience had me skidding to a halt amid sheets of spray and I spied the well-hidden flour blob behind the finger post. A large and smug grin spread across my face as I splashed down the track. Soon to be wiped off when I hit the bar. Back I went and carried on down the road…to a False! “Er. I don’t remember a check.” I thought and backtracked a few hundred yards and into a field wherein a human foot had not trod for many a long year. Back I came to the finger post. Advice from the sage and useful pamphlet “How to Cheat on The Hash” by Cheating came to mind. ‘Wherever possible ignore a bar check.’ Down the stream/track again, over the bar and, yippee, a directional arrow a little further on. It was a hard old yomp up the hill, past some fine houses until the Long and Short split appeared. Incidentally, why is it that everyone writes their ‘L’ backwards in flour? While stopping briefly to catch my breath and spoon my lungs back in I just about heard a Siren-like call far away down the Short. Could it be the song of the lesser-spotted Foghorn? It bloody well could and I was off down the slippery, muddy track like the proverbial cat with it’s a**e on fire. Pretty soon I managed to catch up with SlipperyNipple who was sweeping up the back markers. Butterfly and Dribbler were there, trotting sedately through the soaking sward. Septic and Dumper kindly stood aside to let my tattered frame through. And just as I began to catch up with the leaders Chopstix and Uplift stopped me on the bridge to play Pooh Sticks. Thank God for that. A rest at last. The girls had a tidy little pile of carefully prepared sticks and Chopstix and I picked carefully from it. Then leant over the parapet. She had not really explained the rules and seemed a tad miffed that, as she dropped her stick delicately into the water, I chucked mine well under the bridge to ensure a comprehensive win. She was perhaps a little put out too that when she pointed out my misdemeanour I attempted to chuck her over the bridge in an effort to play Chopstix rather than Pooh Sticks. However, since I couldn’t chuck Uplift over at the same time I reasoned that the game lacked competition and desisted.

Trotting onwards into the forest I came across a fine spread of Hashers, all completely lost and looking for flour. Uptake wandered, Lonely as a cloud. Dolly pottered about among the logs. Motox breezed off left muttering “It always goes this way.” Iceman cast about looking for clues. It fell to Dumper and Septic who had carried straight on rather than up the forested hill to regain momentum although I think C5 was in there somewhere. I’m sure I heard his St. Bernard roar down below. It seemed hardly any time at all before we found the On Inn and stirred up something large and hairy by running across his field and shouting insanely. No, it wasn’t Motox having a musth¹. It was a poor horse trying to have a Sunday morning lie-in.

The trail was most enjoyable with shiggy a-plenty, hills and dales and some fine countryside to view, especially when the sun appeared. The mince pies and mulled wine would have been most welcome to those wot enjoyed ‘em. Thanks girls. I’ll try to be on time for the next one.

Cerberus kindly supplied the quote of the day in the pub while she salivated over Ms. Whiplash’s birthday cake. Delightfully naively she whispered in my ear; “If it’s covered in chocolate I’m game.” ‘Nuff said.

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

GM Foghorn presented the first Down Down with RA Motox presenting the rest :-

Up and Coming