Vamps & Tramps for the Reading Red Dress Regatta

Posh, Bomber, Florence, Baldrick, Dutchcap, Doughnut, Chopstix, Foghorn, Pissquick, Glittertits, Slippery, Slack Bladder & Tag the dog, Spex, Bob, Tin-opener, Trembler, Mother Theresa & Lemming the rodent, Lonely & Beaver the dog, MotoX, Cloggs, Non-stick, Flash, Harry Potter, Handfulls, Ross (virgin), Miss Whiplash, Hitchhiker & Lauren, Miranda, HoneyMonster (33 hashers).

Nice to Have Friends - but more Interesting to be Lonely

‘Slightly overcast but mild for the time of year. Ordinary sort of day really,’ mused Beaver. Perhaps we can go along the river and chase some swan - dream of eating the meat reserved for sovereigns of the realm. Mind you, have you seen what swans have to eat out the river! Maybe not. So master is delving through his old clothes drawers. Wonder what all the fuss is about?

Rushed into the car trying to act nonchalant, but secretly hoping the neighbours don’t see the red dress, Handfulls & Ross and, separately, Florence & Flash timed their arrival to avoid ostensibly standing around getting cold. Arriving later however meant having to park near a school car boot sale, where worried parents averted young children’s eyes from the embarrassment of explaining the red attire. GM Foghorn, sporting a rather revealing new dress and brightly coloured hair, called the motley-coloured crew to order for the young hares, Bomber & Posh both cross-dressed in reds, to point the pack through the town. This wasn’t going to be a ‘heard but not seen’ hash!

We approached The Oracle Centre, milling with Sunday shoppers, and not surprisingly the pack seemed to want to stick together. The panda light beckoned us to cross in front of a police van. The Berkshire Hash tried to look as normal as possible, in deed walking if anything, more slowly, like when going through the red channel with contraband in your suit case in days gone by. Spex & Bob had been tipped for so-called ‘official positions’ on a local magistrates bench before being caught on the Shopping Centre cameras today. But grandparenting is a full time activity!

Like 1^st World War boats, the pack passed in convoy through the busy shopping centre up to a check on Kennet & Avon canal side, where Dutch cap and Doughnut waited gingerly for someone to call the On-on, perhaps pleased their children were not in town today. Baldrick, contrariwise, had brought his son with him! So the pack spread out heading towards the Abbey Ruins, along the side of Reading Gaol. I think Oscar Wilde had a verse in his Ballad about quicklime poured on the hanged man’s body to dissolve his red dress, but I might have remembered this wrong (prize for anyone remembering it correctly). It was around here I noticed Chopstix’s visibly very fetching red pants on top of her black tights. Lemming and Mother also showed pants below dress. And I thought it was still sexy to show pants above over-sized jeans. It’s so hard to keep up these days!

Anyway back to the trail along Kennetside to The Thames, passed jolly whistling football pitches: the players this time were doing the whistling. Glitter Tits was first to the pleasantly sited ReGroup opposite View Island. Did you know GT is entered for 19 mile Grizzly next month? Slack Bladder and Tag arrived soon after well dressed for the rowers’ Regatta ahead of us. (Fashion-watchers should note S-B also displayed foundation garment. Trembler confessed he hadn’t waxed this week. Whilst re-grouping it was fun to read the names on TinOpener’s 1988 BH3 T-shirt and to marvel at the stalwart, Wally’s sticking power still going!

After the re-group, several including Miss Whiplash, Hitchhiker with little Lauren by the hand, took the sensible short option, while a few proud ones took the long trail over the lock into Caversham and back over the further bridge, through Rivermead and the Cardiff Road industrial estate not crossing the IDR until the Holybrook Estate. The pack seemed to get very split up now and it was here that a 1960s film title came to me about the Loneliness of the Long-distance Red Dress runner. A stunning and self-enlightning trail in many ways. Thanks to the Hares. On On. Lonely.

Down Downs

Suitably dressed as a French tart, specially invited RA, Motox, presented the following:-

Up and Coming