Sheep, Nymphs and Shepherds

AntiHash, HashLamb, Daisy, Hashgate, Motormouth, Toby, GBH, CircuitBreaker, Florence, Tim, Audrey, Wendy, Ann, Andy, Ben, Lynne, Pru, Bob and huge dog Enzo, Liz with sheepdog Tess Simple, DunnyStumbler, Honeymonster, Baldrick, Tweenie (with Hash Horn), TT2, LordLucan, Peter, Robert, Lemming, MotherTheresa, Claire, ScarletPimpernel, Abi, PoisonedChalice, SillyCow, ArthriticTit, Glittertits, PissQuick, Motox, Cheating, Iceman, Naomi, Whinge, TC, David, Snowballs, Ms Whiplash, C5, Mr Blobby, Mrs Blobby, Utopia, Dolly, OldDog, SlackBladder, Spex, LoudonTasteless, Dutch, Donut, Pyro, Drexel (with live sheep!), CallGirl, DragonLady, Foghorn, Zebedee, ShutupWally, OldFart, Itsyor, Krystyna, Godzilla, Spot, HitchHiker, Gareth, Bomber, Posh, CIAC, HeyBabe, Butterfly, Dribbler, Cerberus, Premature, Jenks, TinOpener, Caboose, Flash, Ladybird, Dot, Dash, Stretch, Mini-ha-ha, Cheater, PonyExpress, Cloggs (Apologies if I missed anyone)

Shep’s Hash

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside still waters.
He causeth me to slip over in the shiggy (The 23^rd Psalm – BH³ version)

He certainly did. Shep, sitting in a heavenly armchair with his feet up, a cheeky grin and a pint of beer in his hand arranged an afternoon downpour of biblical proportions just before HashLamb and I embarked on laying the trail – Daisy, though having recce’d it thoroughly a couple of times, had to sort out a joint or two during the day (in a physiotherapy kind of way, I hasten to explain). Consequently, the trail was a perfect mixture of mud, puddles and lush, wet pasture.

BH3 and guests had flocked to the event, taking the sheep theme to heart and wearing or bringing some excellent items, though none bettered Drexel who brought a real, live sheep complete with collar and lead. He had previously generously offered AntiHash one that was in his freezer for the night’s food and AntiHash had phoned me to, as she said, ‘run it past you’. This conjured up an eye-goggling vision of said lady running up our road with Drexel’s offering under her arm sporting a somewhat frozen expression. We had to decline Drexel’s offer.

BH³ rose to the occasion. Here are just a few. Baldrick looked rather like a were-sheep with a huge, dark fleece on his back. Premature and Cerberus wore sheep fleece body-warmers which Cerberus said made them look like mutton dressed as lamb and an old ram, respectively. Jenks was resplendent in a fleece jerkin with long tail, fleece leggings and cap with black ears – I understand he wears this outfit to work each day. OldFart had three pieces of paper attached to him stating, ‘Ewe were made for me’, ‘Now that I found ewe’ and ‘Ewe really got me’. Nice one. HitchHiker had substituted ‘sheep dips’ for ‘sheep nips’ by attaching little sheep-shaped buttons to appropriate points(!) on her T-shirt. As a member of BH³ Committee I felt it my duty to inspect these closely to ensure adherence to the evening’s theme. I am pleased to report that they stood up to my scrutiny…

The Hash started with a ‘Braille Check’ in honour of Bill Gulliver, a blind runner and friend of Shep’s. One Hasher wore a blindfold while a companion led them stumbling to the first Check. The fact that I had forgotten to lay the first Check was neither here nor there since the sight of Hashers blundering up a muddy path to a False and staggering all over the road was a joy to behold. Of course, the poor blindfolded people were sitting targets for a good puddle splash or just total abandonment, like CallGirl who was left on the verge by father Foghorn who chased off after Lemming. As we entered the first muddy field I had to explain to Cerberus and Premature that they could take the blindfold off – they woulkd have been at it for another ½ mile otherwise! As we jogged along ArthriticTit was sensuously zipping off the sleeves of her running top in a dismal attempt to lure, well, any bloke off the straight and narrow while SillyCow sensibly urged her to leave on the underwear. The two-way Check on the deep shiggy path duly fooled SlowSucker and other FRBs who slid and sucked their way back up the slippery track to join the walkers at the top for a clod-hopping trek across the ploughed field.

This led to the first Sheep Check. My fellow (?) shepherdesses had made 30 little woolly sheep on strings out of card and cotton wool and we had hung a number of them at these Checks (a circle with a bar across it. i.e a ‘baa’ Check) for collection and a fair old scrum ensued to get them. There were quite a few deep, muddy puddles here and a wonderful mud fight ensued. It was highly amusing to see new girl Naomi (svelte, youthful and initially pristine) covered from head to toe in grime, smiling happily amongst the melée. Our revered GM, Spex, also caused much mirth by slipping over and sliding into the watery depths like a hippo into a Serengeti waterhole. We off-tracked into private land here and at the base of the hill enjoyed another puddle extravaganza where C5 made a stand in the midst of all, grasping his pair of dripping sheep slippers and soaking all-comers. Lemming and Foghorn were of course in their element, both covered and covering and HashLamb and Daisy joined in with glee. I bumped into Daisy a little later and was amused to see that the mud had run down her chin to make what appeared to be a little goatee beard. It perfectly suited her Egyptian-style shepherd outfit. In fact, we three looked more like a damp Wilson, Kepple and Betty.

And so we reached our very best Sheep Check by a stile. Over the stile was a False. Down the steep hill and up the other was a False. A farm track led off left with nothing on it. There was much milling and gnashing of teeth as the FRBs tried to work it out and we Hares stood grinning and dripping as the Pack came nicely together. Mr Blobby almost got it as he viewed the harrowed field to the right of us. Honeymonster found a flour blob on it (‘accidentally’ surrounded by earth) and I think it was Spot who finally figured it out and led the streaming horde across the fine, rolling hill towards the Regroup. Now you’d think that when I called out “Long Trail that way” the sensible ones would stay put but, for some reason, nearly everyone beetled off for the ‘One blob and On’ loop. From here things went a little bit pear-shaped. I had laid the Long trail on my own so another Hare (who shall remain nameless) pointed everyone up across Crowsley Park at the first Check when they should have gone straight on! Ooer. No wonder they couldn’t find any flour. It began to get very dusky – especially in the forest. More ooer. When the Long rejoined the Short most people opted for the short cut straight up the hill, missing out our looping forest run – mind you, it was pretty dark by then. Only GBH, Tweenie and a couple of ladies took the longer trail and we staggered on along it in the gathering gloom. By this time Zebedee and some others had missed a damn great Bar Check and had to track back. ShutupWally came bounding up behind us having arrived late and followed the arrows. We missed out a further bit of private forest in order to get back before sunrise and lo and behold there was the polo field where we had parked the cars. Tweenie blew his horn in relief. It still sounded pretty bad to me.

We all adjourned to AntiHash’s booze and food extravaganza, a damn convivial evening where we enjoyed the sight of Jenks still in his mucky sheep outfit and Drexel’s lovely clean sheep whose quiet, docile, dignified presence contrasted strongly with the orgy of scoffing, drinking and bawdy laughter indulged in by the Hash. It was a really fun night and we all know Shep would have approved mightily. Huge thanks got to Jan (AntiHash), Sally (HashLamb) and Vicky (Daisy) for hosting the event and making it such a roaring success. On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs - RA Glittertits unsheepishly presented the following :-

Pecked initially but finished fast

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