Dog Lovers

Cerberus Premature Hashgate DunnyStumbler Simple Dutch Honeymonster Snowballs Iceman Margaret and dog Pebbles Dave Desperate Eugene Andy Matthew Louise LoudonTasteless Spex BlouseBlazer C5 SlackBladder Lilo TinOpener and dog Emma Flash Shirley John(I think) CIAC HeadBoy HeyBabe ScarletPimpernel Effin Amanda (but see below) Tony and dog Barney Anorak Trainspotter Baldrick Ms Whiplash CabinBuoy Krystyna Posh Bomber Itsyor Sh*tShoveller Quack Motox Glittert*ts P*ssQuick Cheating Tim Nicky and dog Bandit Lonely Bootsie Zebedee Florence

No ‘F’ In Trail

Many have aired their views about the Hash. Some polite, some not so polite. From friendly passers-by to irate farmers we have just about had every opinion on the subject. But none so tacit or succinct as the (mainly) silent one given by a fine horse just before the Gather Round. A couple of horsewomen had trotted up the lane and were walking through the centre of the mass of chatting, weirdly-attired, largely middle-aged Hashers. The second horse stopped dead. He looked left and right. His nostrils flared at the sight. “Hellfire.” He thought. “What a bunch of prats. Collective intelligence level of a colony of amoeba. Most of ‘em should have been sent to the knackers years ago. Pity I can’t talk. However, I shall make my opinion known.” With that the magnificent fellow raised his tail and deposited several barrowloads of steaming, knobbly garden fertiliser in our midst. Point made, he walked on with head held high, his embarrassed rider trying to shrink into her riding jacket.

I must congratulate Spex for managing to follow that with her GM duties before we On Outed in several directions following Hare Jenks’ vague arm wave to help us on our way. I can’t say the tried and tested ‘spread out and check’ method actually worked this time. Baldrick and I sallied up the usual track only to find no flour then crossed through a patch of ankle-grabbing brambles to join the main Pack sloshing about in the shiggy seemingly lost. They were. Not surprising I suppose. This was the same area that C5, the then Hare, had lost himself in the last time we ran here. I contented myself with a chat to the lesser spotted HeyBabe and new girl Nicky. Nicky, with husband Tim, owns the game little dog Bandit (I’m sure I’ve seen him before) who ran all over the place, covered himself with mud and generally had a great time. Typical Hasher then. He shared most of the Hash with Amanda and Tony’s dog, Barney who is becoming a bit of a Hash legend. More about him later. We all joined Florence back at the pub and then went back down the trail the Pack had already Checked out. Pathetic really. But Jenks and Dylan were quite rightly delighted.

Now one of the features of any Hash laid by Jenks is his deliberate failure to lay an ‘F’ at the end of any False trail. I had just mentioned this to Glittert*ts as we began striding purposefully down a slippery mud track after DunnyStumbler and Sh*tShoveller. Out of the mouths of Scribes etc. ½ a mile later we realised that Jenks had turned right at the Check where a smug-looking Premature was standing. Was he in posession of prior knowledge? Whatever it was he didn’t have to schlep tripping, stumbling and slipping ½ mile back up that damn track and figure out which forest trail to take. Luckily, we bumped into the embarrassed horsewoman, without horse (think she’d shot and buried it) who told us where to go. Literally that is, unlike her horse. We finally saw the backs of Cheating, Krystyna, Dutch and the rest. It was a great relief. We’d got rather lonely. Though probably not as lonely as Ms. Stumbler and Mr. Shoveller who were five minutes behind us.

Premature was paid back for his smugness later, twice. The first time he launched himself like a small missile in pursuit of an elusive ‘F’ only to fizzle out like a spent Woolies rocket. The second time he, TrainSpotter and I had been barrelling down a narrow track between fields when we spotted a flour blob on a stile and stopped like we’d hit a brick wall. Premature convinced young Spotter to turn off the track and we continued on with him chortling over the joke he’d played. Until the yodelled ‘On On’ came from TrainSpotter who was by now a mile away and going like (appropriately enough) an express train with freshly greased piston bearings, a newly descaled boiler, and a wild-eyed fireman intent on stoking up an absolute inferno beneath it. One barbed wire fence and a lot of breathless running and we finally caught up with the fellow. Itsyor and Cerberus joined us as we trotted through a mud and poop track leadiing through a farm. To our left was a large midden (dung heap in more modern parlance). It steamed gently, exuding an odour worse even than Motox’s plimsoll after a hard day’s Hashing. Worryingly, a bit of it moved. Ooer. Fortunately, it was not to be a remake of ‘The Blob’. It was a water buffalo. Now you may think there is an element of fiction creeping in but no, absolute truth, the fellow ambled out of the pile of stench with a slight sucking noise and squelched off, presumably as disgusted with the sight of us as we were of him. We met a whole herd more of his colleagues in a pen just down the track. They seemed to be mooing in Urdu or Sanskrit.

Of course it wasn’t long before we took a short educational turn round the Maharaja’s Well at Stoke Row with, amongst others, Anorak. This rather fit young lady told me she had run a 21 mile race the day before. It should have been 20 miles but a kindly marshall had sent her the wrong way. How she must have laughed…

So to Barney, Amanda and Tony’s canine bundle of energy. There he was, running slightly ahead with Dylan when they came to a stile. Svelte Dylan flowed through the two horizontal wooden bars above the stile with ease. Barney, being a bit heavier and wider stopped and looked back plaintively at Amanda with a look that said, “How the f*ck am I going to get through there?!” Now Barney isn’t the lightest of dogs and when Amanda picked him up ready to post him through the bars his wriggling made her grip slip somewhat. Consequently, his front half stuck through the stile, paws desperately padding in the air, so that one of Amanda’s hands ended up by his, ahem, gentleman’s appendages while the other, in a frantic attempt to push him through by his back end had it’s thumb half way up his… well I’ll spare your blushes. Suffice to say poor Barney whimpered alarmingly at this unrequested intrusion, wriggled even more and shot through the stile and after Dylan like his bottom was on fire. It probably felt like it was. Personally, in the future it will be a case of ‘ladies first’ if I get to a stile with Amanda. All this was duly reported to RA Simple who later awarded Amanda her Hash name, Pen*sPuller. I’m sure she’s well pleased with that. Since this is a bit of a mouthful (not sure if I should say that) and it’s yet another name that will stop a Gobsheet going through a mail gateway I’m going to refer to her as PP. I’m sure she won’t mind too much. Our picture shows PP expectantly kneeling down with her mouth open next to a headless Simple. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about that.

The last part of the trail followed a well loved route through paddocks and fields towards the road leading up to the pub and we duly bustled towards it, looking forward to a good pint. Quite why BlouseBlazer and Dutch didn’t turn up until 30 minutes later looking somewhat dishevelled I shall also leave to you to make your own conclusions… A fine trail Jenks. Always like this venue.

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Simple (unusually enough) presented the following :-

Ably assisted by Lilo. Well done PP!

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