BH3 Gobsheet

Run Number:	1509	22/10/06	Visit the website – http://www.berkshirehash.co.uk Website Email – iceman@berkshirehash.co.uk
Venue:	The Leather Bottle Mattingley
Hares:	Florence, Zebedee, OldDog

Brians and Ermintrudes

Mother Theresa Lemming Hashgate Handful J and dog Alfie Ms Whiplash Potty Nutcracker Whinge TC ShutupWally Iceman Baldrick LoudonTasteless Spex Lilo and dog Emma TinOpener Bomber Posh SlackBladder LittleStiffy Butterfly Dribbler Mr Blobby Mrs Blobby Dumper Septic Uplift TA TrainSpotter SlipperyN*pples BlouseBlazer Dutch Effin Motox NonStick Cloggs Cheating Lonely Bootsie Hitchiker Hamlet Fukawe Itsyor

The Magic Roundabout

Poor Florence. She’d been left in the poo by that mountebank, C5. After promising her all kinds of things, including laying today’s trail with her, he skipped off, leaving Zebedee to spring in and pick up the pieces. Luckily, she also had an OldDog (fulfilling the Dougal rôle) offering assistance so the Hare side of things was well-covered, and we have an appropriate title for this Gobsheet.

The weather wasn’t quite that magic, with heavy rain threatening and a distinct October coolness in the air. There was a spot of coolness (or was it desperation?) from Handful as she attempted to back in to a parking space the size of Cardiff and failed dismally after shuffling back and forth a number of times. We have seen this before from our Handful and it never fails to bring pleasure into the lives of the watchers. Shortly after the girl exhaustedly pushed her car door open and poured herself out Dutch roared into the car park somewhere between second and third gear. With a metallic grinding and a clang she intimidated the gear lever into reverse and ripped off a couple of gear teeth before hurtling backwards, narrowly missing BlouseBlazer’s crumpet cruiser; then stood upright on the brake and bounced gently off the fence behind. Way to go Handful; ask for a lesson. Ms Whiplash, on the other hand, who had parked swiftly and with style, leapt out and rushed over to me with an intense expression on her face before asking worriedly, “Do you think they do food?” Before speeding over to the pub and banging frenziedly on the door. They obviously did do food since we saw her after the Hash getting outside what appeared to be a lamb roast with the speed of an amoeba engulfing a particularly succulent bacterium that’s strayed too far from the rest of the family.

But let’s get back to the trail which was certainly roundabout and had been laid in parts with a certain prestidigitation. Let’s take as an example the Check in that wet, long-grassed hilly field into which we skidded. Having coursed breathlessly up the hill to the extremely large ‘F’ (which SlackBladder managed somehow to miss) we tooled back down again in the company of Cloggs (wearing a fetching surgical stocking) and NonStick while watching Bomber leading a fruitless charge into one corner of the field while Mr Blobby led another in the opposite direction. By this time Florence had arrived and was surrounded by a scrum of confused Hashers. Iceman finally spotted a flour blob on the tree just over the brow of the hill and that’s when we found the true trail, just to the right of the False. Hmm. Sneaky. There were quite a number of occasions when we found ourselves scratching our heads over the trail direction. Even Cheating (who I actually found myself following at this point) found a False and turned back to the Check, an action so foreign to his nature that one had to question one’s very sanity.

Quite the best thing we saw today was Mattingley Church. This beautiful and unusual 14^th century building exuded calm from its timbered and herring-bone brick walls, the low-hanging, tiled roof sweeping down to protect the cherished interior seen through stained glass windows, stone floor polished by many feet over the centuries. After so many weddings, Christenings, services and funerals what this ancient building made of luridly dressed, muddy Hashers capering around its grounds would be interesting to know. But the spirit of the place was benevolent and open-hearted and I like to think we raised a glimmer of a smile amongst its more serious reflections.

Scurrilous Scandals

OldDog Gets Bone?

Mattingley Church might have been the best thing we saw all day. The very worst thing was the sight of Baldrick furtively scurrying away from behind a large tree in one direction while OldDog scurried away from it in the opposite direction giggling like a schoolgirl. When confronted by your intrepid reporter she offered to, “gi’ ye a crack aboot the heed!” and, “Mek mickles oot o’ yewr muckles ma wee bonnie pen pushin’ prannie!” I made my excuses and left.

he Regroup ‘RG’ was written in big letters (for those who had forgotten their glasses) upon the large trunk of a long-fallen tree. Ms Whiplash, J and Alfie, Effin, Butterfly, Dribbler and a small group of walkers stood around tapping their feet and wondering why on earth we had taken so long to get to the place. The sorry state of some of the Pack provided the visual evidence. Spex and Fukawe dragged their weary carcasses over to the log and draped themselves over it, panting. The ‘R’ and ‘G’ could have stood for Retching and Groaning, Run into the Ground, Rest… Great. So it must have been somewhat less than heart-warming when Flo and Zeb announced that the Long Trail was only another couple of miles. Even Bomber’s Adam’s apple quivered up and down. He was either worried about the distance, swallowing something I’d rather not talk about or about to yodel. Since he’s a non-smoker and Posh doesn’t allow him to yodel any more I’ll assume it was the first option. His wasn’t the only thyroid cartilege to rise aghast as we swallowed the words tossed so casually about by the Hares. It was all right for them. They’d already run the thing! There was nothing for it. The clouds were thickening grey. Nobody wanted to be called a woofter. Off we went. And got really lucky after a rather steep hill up which Itsyor and Mr Blobby puffed until, like Thomas, they ran out of steam. There is a certain pleasure in getting Check after Check right first time, especially when one’s legs weigh twice as much as when one started. We were indeed very lucky – until we hit another of those Checks where the trail lay between two Falses through the middle of a field. And we could see the walkers disappearing into trees a couple of miles away. It was a fairly long, gloopy, mud and cow-poop schlep through ever-rising fields at the end of which Cheating frightened us all by leaping back on to the trail over a fence! Lord knows why. Luckily we returned just before the really heavy rain and repaired to the warm shelter of a very nice pub indeed. Damn fine trail you three – thanks very much.

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

With the rain pelting down on and outside our rude shelter by the side of the pub, blood substitute RA presented the following :-

Name	Reason	Style points
Whinge	Calling BGB GBH	He kind of sneaked a pint and a ½
Little Stiffy, Jules	Stiffy introduced virgin hasher Jules	Little Stiffy tossed most of it towards Motox
Baldrick, Cheating	Running across private land	Baldrick tossed some of it at Motox!
Florence, Zebedee OldDog	Today’s Excellent hares	Poor Zeb. Beaten by two women (but I believe he likes that sort of thing)

Lonely presented OldDog with the Hash Umbrella for general lack of spatial awareness. She had no idea where she was!

Up and Coming

Run	Date	Grid Reference	Venue	Hares
1511	05/11/06	415654	The White Hart Hamstead Marshall RG20 0HW	Butterfly Incider
1512	537643	537643	The Traveller’s Friend Crookham RG19 8EA	Potty Simple

Hash Skittles Evening

Saturday 11^th November at 19:30. At Civil Service Club, James Lane, Burghfield. Gridref: 676676. Cost £6 for skittles and food. To book a place see Motox.