Centurions? (Well, there was a lot of roman about…)

Motormouth Jamie Tash Hashgate TC Whinge Barney and old dog PP (Oops! Wrong way round!) PP and old dog Barney Nappyrash Diver Zebedee Florence BillyBullshit Cerberus Desperate Shitfor CabinBuoy Mr Blobby Mrs Blobby Utopia Uplift ShutupWally and dog Bonnie LittlteStiffy SlackBladder Dutch Caboose Lilo with dog Emma Barry with dog Fido (more of him later) Snowballs OldFart Chopstix Shandyman Aqua Flash Itsyor Fiddler Dwight Centaur Dumper Septic Dribbler Butterfly Stripper C4 C5 Tapeworm SlowSucker J-Wax DunnyStumbler Simple Donut Hilary Hitchiker Hamlet Bogbrush Fannybag Lonely Nutcracker Potty JustMoist Iceman Vicki Andy Lorenzo TT2 Baldrick Harry Gee Steve Linda

The 100 Years Hash

Nice quiet evening’s Gobsheet writing, I thought. Sorted out Motormouth’s freezing pc. Fed the cat. Here we go. The doorbell rings. A tall youth smiles back at me as I open the door. “Can you ask Chris if he wants to take the wings off a mini please?” He asks politely. This could be quite useful, I thought, Motormouth goes out. No more kicking the frozen pc. I get to write. Things are never quite as you expect, are they? After pushing an engineless, windowless old mini on to my drive three (another appeared) teenagers are angle-grinding the wings off energetically. The joys…

But they shall not deter me from my enjoyable task of reporting this Hash that celebrates a combined century of Hashing by tonight’s four hares. One can view this as either an exceptional achievement by four loyal BH³ members or wonder why the four sad gits had nothing better to do. Of course, I would choose the former.

The Hash turned out to be yet another of those “Let’s all run as fast as we can and exhaust ourselves” kind of trails. Goodness knows why. Some of this serene countryside was perfectly beautiful. The rain had disappeared, leaving a broken sky with an artist’s jumble of colours: pink and grey, white and blue, grey and teal. The fields sloped and rolled, soft barley spread like a pale green cloak over one, grey-green bean plants stood to attention in sqeaky lubricity in another. In the distance, in a leafy forest on a hillside, peeped the roof of a thatched cottage. And barely a sound to stir the air. Wonderful.

Except when the Pack thundered by. This was particularly evident when we dog-legged across yet another shimmering emerald field. The delightfully named BogBrush and I were following Billy, Shitfor et al when they uttered an ‘On On’ that would have made the hairs curl on the back of Beelzebub’s neck. What they hadn’t noticed was the deer. A few moments before the large, sleek animal was munching contentedly, eyes closed in rapture, having gently hoofed out a particularly succulent green morsel from the fecund earth. The FRBs changed all that. PHTOOO! Went the sgm (succulent green morsel) and up went his magnificent head. One glance at Billy and the lads was enough. “MMWWOOAARRR MMWWAAA MMWWWEEEKKK‘s that?!” Cried the beast, demonstrating that most deer words start with ‘MMWW’ and that, through a number of years association with a friendly woodcutter who invariably listened to gangsta on his iPod, he had picked up the rudiments of not particularly polite English. Following a quick, panicky hip-hop about and a further volley of deer rap that, roughly translated, meant, “Yo yo motherf (couldn’t quite hear the next bit). I’se getting’ ma deer ass outta here. Word.” The creature bounded across the field at a stunning speed and leapt regally into the forest, leaving behind some very slack-jawed Hashers.

Since the Hash was run at such a furious pace it was difficult to see what was happening anywhere else but in the immediate area. Let alone catch my breath. However, I can report that there were two glistening, fresh streams to wade through and new boys Lorenzo and Andy were equal to the challenge (after I told them it was a mandatory requirement) though new boy Jamie went through just the once, citing lack of spare footwear. With that combination of recklessness and lack of organizational skills the lad could go far in the Hashing world.

After what seemed like a couple of hours of all-out running we finally hit the On Inn and started trotting across the football field. Unfortunately, I found myself next to Itsyor. Whenever we do this he starts running a little faster, then I do. I edge ahead, then he does. And so on and so on until there is a double track of charred grass behind both of us as the red mist kicks in. We were half way into this madness when I turned to him, as we accelerated, saying, “We always do this don’t we?” He replied thus: “I….” Gasp. “Can’t hold…uuurg.” What? I wondered. His drink? A candle to your running style, Hashgate? It any longer? Surely not! But no. He finally wheezed out, “A conv’sation.” He was right.

Possibly the most surreal story involves Barry and his fine little terrier, Fido. Fido runs and runs and runs. Sometimes 13 miles with Barry and his short little legs never stop (the dog, that is). “Lovely little chap, isn’t he ?” I said to Barry as we ran along. “Yes and No.” Barry replied, explaining about the long distances he runs. “Mind you, last week he bit the head off a pheasant.” Gulp. The Incredible Hulk in small, white terrier form. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

BH³ spent the rest of the evening in the Village Hall. Bits of this were so funny. Sadly, I don’t have enough space to describe it all but here goes the best. Toward the end of the evening I strolled over to the makeshift bar for a final drink to find Motox and C5 concentrating on squeezing the very last drops of beer out of the barrel. Motox had it upended while C5 held a large jug carefully below the spout, gathering finally about half a jug of the precious liquid. “What do you want Hashgate?” Asked the friendly C5. “Half will be fine, thanks.” I replied, plonking my tankard down on the table. C5 jerked the jug forward in a rather epileptic style, sloshing most of the contents on to the table and just under half into my mug. “Thanks C5.” I squeaked, choking back the hysterical laughter, turning quickly and wobbling back to my table, lip-biting and desperately trying to stop the tears from streaming down my face. A better example of Hash-based futility of effotr I cannot imagine. Thanks you two.

We ate. We drank. We enjoyed. While those excellent helpers like Uplift, Whinge, Mrs Blobby, Septic, Motox, new girl Tash and others who I was obviously too lazy to notice (sorry guys) made the event effortless and pleasant for the rest of us. Simple rounded the thing off with a bravura RA Down Down performance.

Yet another entry to add to the BH³ Scroll of Excellent Hash Events. It was a privilege and a pleasure to be there. Congratulations to our 25-year Hashers and thankyou for the fine trail.

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Simple presented the following :-

We knelt before Tash in abject apology and polished off the halves in reasonable time

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