Too Lazy/Old/Tired To Run Reading ½ Marathon

Posh C5 Old Dog Hashgate Dumper Septic PissQuick Glittertits Donut Florence Zebedee Foghorn Caboose TurdTreader SlackBladder Quack and son Andrew TinOpener Miranda and dog Emma Baldrick Mafia and dog Max BGB Cloggs NonStick

Every (Old) Dog Has Its Day – Mother’s Day In Fact

… And so it was with BH³’s very own Old Dog. This particular cognomen is rather ill-fitting since is brings to mind a flea-bitten, lop-eared, dozy towser emitting foul smells from both ends while you are trying to entertain your mother-in-law. Most of that description is, of course, entirely inappropriate when applied to our vivacious, blonde, Scottish Harriette who was absolutely everywhere on this Hash. It was impossible to investigate a Check without a high-pitched “Arrrr Yeouw?” following your every move – especially when one had just screamed “On One!” at the top of one’s voice. Even Iceman, another Scot and renowned for his blood-curdling Hash calling, was subjected to this while he and I scurried forth from a Check. He immediately took two lungfuls of forest air and let go a blast that shredded his vocal chords, the bark off the nearest tree and the back of Foghorn’s tracksuit bottoms. As the dust settled and Iceman’s paroxysm of coughing subsided a plaintive cry could be heard from behind us - “Arrrr Yeouw?”

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself and more of Old Dog later on. It was a small but merry band of mothers (in more senses than one) that filled the car park at the pub on this Mother’s Day, trotted out into the cold air and turned into familiar, but no less pleasant for that, woodland. Now we all know that Motox is something of a master trail layer and he certainly didn’t disappoint in these early stages. Glittertits found a False down the hill, I to the right and Baldrick to the left. Which left us with a Back Check, the first of a number which foxed us and kept the pack together. The other thing that kept the Pack together was Motox, who seemed to be very keen to be at the front – rather a strange thing for a Hare! As soon as we found a Check, he was there! As soon as we trolled off down a False, he called us back! Poor Zebedee was doing his best to lose the fellow by running like a man with his trousers on fire. But to no avail. It was as though Motox wanted us to hurry up and get it over with because he had something hot waiting for him when he got home… Lucky him, I had half a pork pie and a load of painting waiting for me.

Still, it was all going well with the walkers catching up and the plucky Donut whizzing jammily (geddit! ‘jam’? ‘donut’? Oh please yourselves) about at the front for a bit. I even found myself behind Mafia and Miranda at one point – damn fine trail laying! We burst from the woods out on to a large, sloping, treeless area (Motox right up with us, of course) and Zebedee foolishly went left downhill while Foghorn foolishly went uphill and right with Glittertits and me following. Silly us! Zeb hit the False and we staggered all the way up the hill to a Check where we turned round to see the rest of the Pack (headed by Motox) zooming straight across the windblown sward towards the woods opposite with the intensity of the entire Zulu nation sweeping down on Rourke’s Drift. ‘Cept, of course, most of our lot weren’t wearing war kilts, face paints and brandishing their knobkerries. At least I don’t think the latter is true – I was a long way away. A damn long trek across the cold heath saw us back into the shelter of the forest, thank goodness, and here it was that Old Dog had her day.

C5 and I spotted her, lying prone and apparently lifeless in a pile of leaves with Dumper and Septic in close attendance. It seems she had been bounding about like a complete lunatic calling “Arrrr Yeouw?” willy-nilly and had completely failed to notice a tree root the size of Rutland directly in front of her. One moment she was soaring Icarus, the next, earthy Caliban as she tripped and fell in a heap like a felled ox. Not that I’m likening her to a bovine friend but she certainly was doing a good impression of one. Luckily, she had the presence of mind to fall in the recovery position – as opposed to the Missionary Position, which might have caused further problems, since she was winded and gasping for breath and that might have been construed as passionate breathing by an unscrupulous and randy male Hasher. No, the poor girl had landed heavily on her chest which, as Motox was later to note, is substantial and probably saved her from further injury. In fact, he went so far as to say he was surprised she hadn’t bounced straight back up again. Fortunately, as she told us later, Old Dog’s only other injury consisted of a pair of sore raspberries (rhyming slang) and a bang on the knee. Dumper eventually managed to drag her up off the floor and we brushed the dead leaves, slugs, dog poo etc off and ran off rapidly in case she need any further help. Despite her near brush with disaster she managed to grimace and utter an almost silent “Arrrr Yeouw?”.

It all got a bit hectic from here with Zeb, NonStick, Glittertits, Iceman, C5 etc in turn hitting the front in the steep sides of the forest and inevitably losing their way at one of Motox’ fiendishly cunning Back Checks. A couple of these Checks had an incredible number of False trails leading off them in all directions and these provided ideal opportunities for the Pack to re-form so the FRBs rarely got out of touch with everyone else. At one point Zeb and I were careering down an ankle-breaking hill covered in tree roots and pocked with bunny holes, partly because we had seen the rest of the Pack at the foot of the hill and partly because we had missed the flour in our efforts not to be a burden to the Royal Berkshire Hospital. Motox spotted us and exhorted us to get back on the trail – “Bu**er off and find the flour you lazy bu**ers.” He exhorted in a friendly manner. Who were we to argue? We duly bu**ered off back up the hill.

By the time we hit the Long/Short split C5 and Florence were chatting and walking and they, Foghorn, myself, Glittertits and Zebedee all agreed we were totally knackered. Not that this stopped Florence skipping up the next hill like a spring lamb and showing us all up! Fortunately, a longish grassy upward slope led to the ‘On Inn’ sign and Zeb and I gratefully hurtled downhill towards the pub where a fine pint of Adnams and some chocolate nibbles courtesy of Zeb, in honour of his birthday, awaited us.

An excellent trail laid through a variety of terrain by a master craftsman. Nice one, Motox!

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Glittertits presented the following :-

Really quite fast with just minor spillage

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