Run Number:1368 Visit the website – www.berkshirehash.co.uk

Website Email - iceman@berkshirehash.co.uk

Venue: Aston Rowant Nature Reserve

The Explorers

Iceman, Spot, Hashgate, Hitchhiker, Poppy Penis, Pissquick, Honeymonster, C5, Non-stick, ShutupWally, Septic, The Lone Trembler, Dumper, Baldrick, Drexel and dog Maggie, Imposter, Yankit, Slack Bladder and dog Tag, Poison Chalice, Cheating and Slowsucker + Walkers; C4,Old Dog, Dutchcap, Chris and dog Bonnie

Hares

Zebedee and Florence

The Alternate Hash: Motox, BGB, Dribbler ,Lemming and Mother Theresa.

“Tis better to have travelled and got lost…”

(With apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson )

I thought my approach to finding the Hash venue was somewhat like explorers of yore i.e. Having a vague idea where I was going, aiming in the approximate direction and then hoping to see a landmass or landmark or more likely a familiar car (I have great faith in estate cars!) It’s OK when there is a pub but grid references...Well! My last ordnance survey map runs out at Binfield Heath and I wracked my brains for other techniques that have served our heroes well: – Captain Cook kept turning right until he ended up where he started from (or did disappear up his own poop deck): Scott knew it was all uphill until he lost the trail (He should have used coloured flour): I guess every Hash has a Captain Oates – Step forward Cheating: Stanley could be fairly certain he’d met Livingstone as they were the only two white men in Central Africa (“Dr Livingstone I presume” being a particularly crass comment): Only C.S.Forester’s Hornblower always made a perfect landfall and he used a sextant! You can gather that this a rather long winded way of saying I had problems… I found the Orienteers, I found several other Hashers in the wrong car park but it was only after accosting a man with sturdy boots and binoculars and the loan of his OS map that I finally cracked it, arriving late (No surprise there then) but with the assembly still assembled!

We set off late but happy to the nearest wood where we milled around in a hail storm until hare Zebedee pointed us in the right direction… downhill to a bar. Slowsucker and Poppypenis were yellow carded for diving as apparently to do the “full Baldrick” involves broken bones and an air ambulance so their efforts rated as pathetic! We now raced up and down admiring the view of the M40 and Didcot Power Station in the distance. The correct route down to the motorway proved to complicated for most who steered their own shortcuts towards the road especially Wally who skirted all the steepest bits. We paused again to pass the time of day with Lemming and Mother going in the opposite direction (They had started from the wrong car park!) Under the Motorway we passed rejecting the Hares offer of a wade through the flood and disturbed only briefly by the scramble bikes ploughing up the turf. At the first regroup we were joined by the other alternative hashers (BGB, Motox and Dribbler) who then set off apace back in the direction they had come with some confidence! The trail now climbed along the side of a valley. It was noticeable that Iceman and Baldrick were well to the fore (A lifetime of eating Haggis gives one that lopsided gait so useful for traversing slopes!) Ever upwards thwarted by increasingly more complicated gates, which required the skills of a contestant of the “Krypton Factor” to open until we reached the second regroup. Continuing into the adjacent wood we zigged and zagged with the Hash now thoroughly scattered as we passed by oddly carved rocks on the “Sculpture Trail”. A final track down into yet another valley and a long uphill haul through the woods brought us back to the road-bridge across the M40 and the ON INN beckoned. Cheating needless to say was first back with Non-Stick not far behind. Cheating generously doled out beer from his car as the stragglers staggered in. Dribbler meanwhile who had joined the walkers had been accosted and lost his shorts to Shutupwally’s dog Bonnie. I could trot out the old theory about “dogs and their owners” but Mrs Wally seemed a nice lady which for some reason I find rather disturbing but I won’t go there..!

DOWN DOWNS

RA Dumper presided over the following awards;

Pissquick made a huge cake which was enjoyed by all !

A nasty incident when Wally insisted on calling “Poison Chalice”, “Poison Dwarf” was averted. The threatened insertion would never have fitted ( No you’re right I made that up……… Wishful thinking.)

ON ON TO