A Few Old Bats

Donut Hilary Hashgate BlowJob Foghorn OldDog BlouseBlazer Motox Honeymonster Baldrick Spex LoudonTasteless Uplift Mr Blobby Mrs Blobby C4 C5 Mother Theresa Lemming Quack ShitShoveller Caboose Dutch Fukawe Hamlet Trembler Shandyman Chopstix Ryan (aka Spiderman) Florence Zebedee JustMoist NonStick Cloggs StraddleVarious

Holy Crap! It’s The Bat Hash

Holy writer’s block Batman! After starting two entirely different beginnings to this Gobsheet I have scrapped both. Wasn’t flowing, you see. Goodness knows why. There’s so much copy for this Hash. Perhaps that’s the problem. Too much information. Trying to get too much in. Which is why I’m cheating by writing about, um, writing. This is far easier than using every bat joke ever known in a vain attempt to cadge a few laughs. Which is exactly what ShutupWally did during his triumphant pre-Hash oration. His co-hares were punningly referred to as Aqua-bat and Com-bat, and the lengths and complexity of the variety of trails were a cricket bat (not sure why; obviously something side-splittingly funny), a rounders bat (so the medium trailers could get round) and a Wom-bat (for the walkers – well, it had a ‘W’ in it I suppose). This was, actually, one of the best speeches by a hare in some time. I could telepathically hear C5 mentally mouthing the words, ‘Orator Hunt’. At least, I think that’s what it was. Rather bad reception, unfortunately.

One thing you can say about Wally is that when he puts his mind to something he doesn’t muck about with half measures. Standing there in his Batcape, mask, tights and underpants he spouted forth facts and particulars like an information fountain (there was a certain amount of spitting) while we bathed in the waters of his knowledge. A flour bat-shape would be a Bar Check. A ‘B’ in a circle would be a (Bat) Check with either an ‘R’ (for Riddler) or ‘J’ (for Joker) instead of an ‘F’ for False. This all proved too much for some of us which is why I got the old fish-eye from Florence early on after calling ‘On Check’ at a well drawn bat shape. It was quite a slow old start, despite the lovely, warm Spring-like day. Certain agèd muscles creaked into action as Shandyman upped anchor and sailed off after Chopstix’ grandson Ryan who raced away like a mini speedboat, leaving the old lugger drifting in his wake. Well, it was his 60^th birthday party on Friday. If you couldn’t get there you certainly missed a damn good one with some interesting sights. Like Dutch and various other ladies dressed in fishnets, a bunny costume and big pants. All very nice you might think (if you are a heterosexual male that is. Or, come to think of it, a carpet muncher.) And you’d be right. The only problem was that Hamlet was dressed similarly and no matter where one looked one’s eye always came to rest on this awful sight. At least one could take solace from the ever-increasing desire to park a pizza all over SlowSucker’s giant rabbit costume that one was not about to join the mushrooming communities of gays, bi’s, transvestites, transexuals, fetishists, sado-masochists et al. I mean; there’s too much to choose from isn’t there. Stick to what you know is my motto. Horses for courses. Oops. I think that’s another one.

We seemed to have wandered off the path a bit. Which is exactly what Shandyman did a nano-second before he plummeted to earth like a pheasant caught by a whiff of buckshot. Though, of course, the crash-landing pheasant would not have caused several trees away yonder to quiver when the aftershock rippled under them. Made of stern stuff, though, our Shandyman. Merely rose and ran, shiggy and leaves dropping off him as he hobbled along. And quite a lot of shiggy there was in certain parts. Particularly as Fukawe and I dropped down through brush and bracken towards the first Regroup next to ankle-deep stuff and… The Batcave. Wally had very much trumpeted the run as an opportunity to see the creatures and here we were next to the padlocked gate across the very cave. Ooh! It was exciting. There was one tiny problem. Wally had forgotten to bring the batkeys. No rhinolophus, no myotis, no eptesicus, no pipistrellus, not even a sniff of vespertilionidae. In short, “Bat’s off”. Bugger. However, we did have one hugely enjoyable sight as we splodged away from the Regroup. Unusually, Dutch was with us. Usually, particularly during winter, she either wanders off to the nearest Waitrose for coffee and a bun, or joins us all later in the comfort of the pub. Very sensible indeed. However, since it was a nice, warm Spring day she had pulled the track shoes out of the cupboard, brushed off the dust and joined the more leisurely members of the Hash, strolling through the forest. Not a good idea when there is a Lemming and Foghorn about. One minute she is treading daintily round the edge of a wide patch of gurgling shiggy; the next, she’s in it on her back with Lemming looming over her with a handful of the stuff. I turned away. It was too awful to watch. Fortunately for her, the little fellow decided to retreat when one of Dutch’s flailing limbs threatened to catch him in the love spuds (actually, in his case, I understand it’s love spud and more of a new potato than a large roaster. But I’ll leave it to someone like Hamlet to find out…) Lemming also played a large part in splattering a good many of us as we stopped and marvelled at an old water mill a little later on. Which was why Blowjob, Hamlet, BlouseBlazer, Caboose and I all appeared to have had shiggy shovelled over us from on high. We took it with a certain amount of sang froid while watching Cloggs talking to a magnificent swan on the glassy clear mill pond. The magnificent, regal, snowy-pinioned creature glided effortlessly and haughtily towards her. “Oochy coochy swan.” Offered Cloggs. The magnificent, regal etc creature offered her a sardonic eyebrow (well it would if it had had one) and a curled beak. Lord knows what it was actually thinking, but we could guess.

W

Scurrilous Scandals

The Hash ended with a lovely splosh through a fairly damp wetlands, pocked with hoofprints, where ShitShoveller certainly lived up to his name; a trot through a botanist’s paradise, and a telling-off by Aquabat for following flour up to that rather pretty little Church. Apparently, we were on the medium trail rather than the Long?! But since we went exactly the same distance in the opposite direction to get to the pub we couldn’t see it made much difference. BlouseBlazer made the comment perhaps only he could make, “Sometimes, “ He mused, “you can lay too much flour.”

Damn fine Hash, Hares. Enhanced by some excellent spring weather. Thanks for a lot of fun.

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

Wally presented Dutch and Honeymonster with bats in boxes, the latter for actually bringing along a bat detector (that is so sad). Today’s RA C5 relived old memories by presenting the following :-

Not bad for an old pair

Up and Coming