Georges and Dragons

Nick Motormouth Hashgate Donut Swallow Stinking Bishop Hamlet TC Whinge Florence OldDog Lilo and dog Emma Tinopener Motox Dumper Septic Mrs Blobby Mr Blobby Utopia Little Stiffy Vertigo C5 Slackbladder Spex LoudandTasteless Potty Nutcracker Snowballs Shitfor desperate Simple Cerberus Billy Bullshit Fannybag Bogbrush GafferTits Trainspotter Centaur Dwight Baldrick Hitchiker Dribbler Butterfly OldFart Dunny Rampant Rabbit Itsyor Fiddler Sharon Annette Karina Mike Tracy Mike Lonely Penny Pitstop Shitshoveller Chris(with the leg tattoo) Cheating Poison Ivy New Boiler Slowsucker Cloggs Twanky… and Flash cycled in during the Down Downs!

Fired Up But Out Of Breath

How nice it is to have friends. Mates, pals, oppos, people you can rely on. Before I went away those two excellent fellows, Billy and Shitfor, took me to aside in the pub and, tilting their heads to one side, winking extravagantly (that’s ‘winking’) and touching the sides of their respective noses with their first fingers, assured me on their ancestors’ graves that they would be only too delighted to write the Gobsheet for me while I was busy making sure Donut didn’t get too out of it smoking weed in Amsterdam. Perhaps I am too trusting. Especially with two fellows named Billy Bullshit and Shitforbrains. Billy didn’t actually go to the Hash and Shitfor confided to me that by the time the Hash had finished he had forgotten what happened. I suppose they at least made the offer, so thanks guys… very much.

The Trail tonight attracted a huge crowd of Hashers, looters and ne’er-do-wells that included an entire brigade of virgins. We were delighted to see them even if they tried to confuse us by introducing two Mikes. They all seemed to enjoy themselves and so did we since it was a lovely evening and the rain that had drenched Anorak twice while she laid her part of the Trail had flounced off in a swirl of droplets, leaving a golden sun that lowered itself slowly into the West.

We started off as we finished – on good solid tarmac and running fast. For some reason we flew along the Trail despite the Checks. Going up a False was really not a good idea tonight since it took quite a bit of lung-busting sprinting to catch up again. As OldFart, Centaur and Billy found after speeding up a very long False that lay in entirely the opposite direction to the actual trail. But they were very lucky in another way as they were the only ones to see that beautiful sheen of bluebells that spread among the trees on the other side of the track where they were running. I found myself behind Shitshoveller, trotting through the woods on the other side of a ditch, with some barbed wire running low against the top of our side of it. He is a very caring sort of chap is Shitshoveller. As he prepared to leap the ditch he called out to me. “Watch out for the barbed wire!” He exclaimed. He jumped. He caught his trailing foot in the wire. He lay across the ditch in a strained V-shape, desperately clinging to a tussock (thanks again for that word Itsyor) and forming a human bridge over which I was very tempted to step, but was laughing too much to put one foot in front of the other. He was eventually freed, entirely unhurt if mildly embarrassed. Still, he got a free pint out of it (see Down Downs).

Mr Blobby very nearly did something similar a little further on. He was careering along a shiggy-infested track that led to a yet another False (nice one Hares) when he splodged into what appeared to be just another bit of mud. Unfortunately, it had the consistency of the contents of the nappy of a baby that has recently consumed a bagful of figs, two large Toblerones and a bowlful of All Bran. Quite how he sucked his foot out of that mess I don’t know. I swear he was two inches taller on that side afterwards.

The Hash drove on and on. Seemingly faster and faster. Hamlet, using his local knowledge, essayed a short cut across a field while the Pack went parallel to his left. Then scattered even further left like leaves in a wind as the FRBs figured out that the Trail went round the field and through the stile in the middle of the other side. Hamlet veered left like a car with a punctured tyre and leaped across the tussocks (there it is again Itsyor!) with the aplomb of a man who always knows where he is going – even if he doesn’t know quite how to get there.

One of the luckiest(?) Hashers today was Billy Bullshit. We all scurried up a hill after him from a Check until he called the False at the top, whence we all scurried back down. Not Billy, of course. He ran over the False and somehow found the Trail. But even though we could hear him calling in the trees most of us ran off in the opposite direction when we got back to the Check. This means either that we are incredibly stupid or that Billy’s credibility has fallen to an all-time low. Discuss.

I could write of the tree house, pond and plastic herons through which we ran after Whinge (who seems to be getting faster). I could write of running heavy-legged up that blasted tarmac hill with the almost- as-weary C5. I could write of Cheating who was trying to convince Baldrick that the Trail was a left-hander – even though it kept turning right. I could write of pelting along with GafferTits through a farm that kept an incredible variety of animals from dogs and geese to brown sheep and lambs – and smelt worse than Mr Blobby’s left running shoe. Oh look! I did write about them so obviously I could. Could, I suppose, might mean I have the ability to write about them or that I would write about them if I wished to do so. But since I already did write about them the point is academic. Or should that be I have already written about them? Have you noticed how easy it is to ramble when you’re tired? Let’s create a paragraph ditch across which we can scramble, hopefully not catching our reading boots on any barbed wire as we skip across. 1… 2… 3… hup!

There. Done it. Now what. Ooer, run out of time so let’s thank our Hares, Anorak and Spot, for laying the Trail and getting soaked and cold in the process.

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Simple presented the following. And may I say how nice it is to see our absent friend again. I was rather surprised he didn’t award himself a pint as a returnee.

Good effort people!

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