Guests and Gatecrashers

AintgotOne Swallow Dwight Scoot Motormouth Hashgate Dumper Septic Mr Blobby Mrs Blobby Utopia Straddlevarious Misdirection C5 C4 LoudonTasteless Spex Simple Snowballs Baldrick Jwax Nick CabinBuoy Gilly Adrian Dutch Ms Whiplash Colin Suckoff and Merlin the dog Chris Spot Hitchiker Little Stiffy SlackBladder Quack Vertigo ShutupWally Centaur OldFart Itsyor Fiddler Grommit AWOL Iceman Slippery Gaffertits Glittertits Pissquick Dunny RampantRabbit BGB Shitshoveller Penny Pitstop Fannybag Bogbrush Motox Flash FannySniffer Hamlet Shandyman Cheating Zebedee Florence Turdtreader Goldenballs Vanessa Katie

BH³ – The 30^th Birthday Hash

You know just occasionally you get that ‘Something’s slightly awry here’ feeling. Usually when you’re a tad distracted. As was the case after I had slipped lightly across the floor of Penfold Hall on my way to a pre-Hash comfort break. The place was as musty and apparently unused as Cheating’s wallet. You could almost feel the funghi spores rushing gleefully up your nostrils. Which is why I suddenly found myself face-to-face with a quizzical Fannybag who was washing her hands. ‘Omigod! I’m in the Ladies’ I realised, grinned apologetically and manically at Fannybag, turned redder than a baboon’s arse and about-turned smarter than a Sandhurst cadet on passing-out day. Not the most auspicious start to a very auspicious occasion – celebrating 30 years(!) of Hashing by the Royal Berkshire Hash House Harriers. Quite amazing really that a motley collection of runners, ramblers and roamers has been together winter and summer, rain and shine for this length of time.

The motley collection was even larger than usual in the Circle and we were joined by some R2D2, returnees such as Suckoff and Colin and an original member we had not met before, Adrian and his lady, Gilly who looked far too smart to be with us. For our edification, Butterfly was wearing one the original BH³ T-shirts from way back in the 70s. The moths had been at it and it looked a but worse for wear but then many of those assembled had a similar kind of problem. She and Dribbler, Effin and Adrian were given a well-deserved round of applause. They told us we were going to be treated to a Trail that took in a variety of views and surfaces just like we had been on in the last 30 years and we were off.

We took in quite a lot of pleasant forest on the Trail. Most of it was surprisingly dry considering the rain we had just a little while ago though one of our number managed to find a fairly wet bit. C5 and I caught up with Dumper and Donut after a woodland sojourn and were slightly puzzled as to why Dumper’s legs seemed rather more sunburnt than one would expect even after the sunny weekend. It wasn’t sunburn. It was thick, glutinous and strong-smelling. Rather like roadkill after a warm week. His story was that Donut (while in the forest) had advised him to take care on one side because of the slippery conditions. The foolish one had listened to her, nipped to the other side of the path, not seen the thin crust of concealing brushwood, and gone into nostril-wrinkling shiggy up to the thighs. Only wish I’d seen it – purely, I hasten to add, so that I might report the event more factually you understand. A number of others had seen it, though, and these were plainly obvious. The tear-streamed face; the running painfully and holding the aching ribs; the odd uncontrollable snigger. Mind you, the event was almost matched for hilarity when Spot, running fast along the trail, jumped on to one end of a log. On the other end was Nick, who had stopped to admire the view. The seesaw effect almost catapulted him into the bushes and deprived him permanently of, ahem, physical pleasure, to the delight of the following Katie.

I have to report (or I might lose this job!) that our revered GM was first at the first of the two Regroups. He also decided not to Check It Out when we started off again. As he did later at the foot of an uphill trail from a Check, deciding instead to ‘delegate’ the task to Chris and me and sit on the stile instead.

Unlike OldFart, who positively leapt at that stile at the top of the gaspworthy tarmac hill about ¾ of the way along the Trail. Bit of a mistake this since the thing was looser than the morals of a strumpet in old London Town (ask C5 if you don’t understand). Luckily for him, and unluckily for Glittertits, Bogbrush and me, he just managed to regain his balance and plunge into the field. I say plunge because the thing was squishy, full of animal poop and even Dumper would have been hard pressed to drag his carcass out if he had fallen in the stuff. Fortunately, we reached a bit more tarmac and an underpass. Which I realised was the place that was responsible for Effin’s name. On the trail she’d laid some years ago we had wandered bloblessly around this place for quite some time. There was indeed no effin flour!

What seemed like a long, long time/distance later Florence, Iceman and I bumped into Motox and Quack in the forest where the Long and Short Trails coincided. And a long time/distance after that Motormouth and I finally fetched up at Butterfly and Dribbler’s place where we supped on desperately needed beers and munched on delightful tasting (a little ginger in there?) rock cakes. We were also royally entertained by AintGotOne and LoudonTasteless who were wrestling with the bottle tops on those little lager bottles. Teeth were gritted. Faces reddened. T shirts were wrapped round hands frantically trying to twist off those pesky tops. I wandered casually over. Picked up the large, shiny bottle opener lying in plain view and handed it to the fellows. At least they had the grace to look sheepish.

A slightly longer time/distance than we expected took us back to Penfold Hall after a refreshing sprint up that last hill. We were met by an unseen but exceedingly obvious mass of thunderflies that landed on our salty exposed flesh and proceeded to irritate the crap out of the scratching, slapping masses. Except Dumper. For some reason they left him alone. So did we.

An excellent cold buffet and a stunning array of hand-baked cakes awaited us in the hall. Which is probably why, after the queue of eager diners had selected their platefuls and sat down, Zebedee took up his place behind the long tables that held the food and made several rapid and slow grazing and hoovering runs up and down their length. Like a vulture he would hover, eyes pinpointing; then suddenly dart forward and devour a handful of crisps. Like a hungry python he would sidle lazily up to the table, tongue flickering, unblinking eyes glittering, encircle two or three chicken slices, slowly crush the life out of them, then swallow them whole. He even managed a hug piece of chocolate cake later. The lad must have worms.

Thankyou so much to our Hares. Not just for the night’s Trail. Without them there wouldn’t be any Trails at all. Happy 30^th Birthday BH³.

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Simple presented the following after Butterfly, Dribbler, Effin and Adrian blew out the fork ‘andles on the large birthday cake:-

Slow but unsure. 

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