Old Lags, Time Servers and Time Wasters

PennyPitstop Shitshoveller Hashgate Heybabe CIAC Florence Zebedee TT3 Itsyor Fiddler Cloggs Nonstick Cheating Comfort Lonely Donut Swallow AWOL Fannybag Bogbrush Iceman Motox Spex LoudonTasteless Cerberus Billy Bullshit Shitfor Desperate Mr Blobby Mrs Blobby Utopia Twanky Blowjob Baldrick JWax Richard Nappyrash CabinBuoy Whinge Dumper Slowsucker Ladybird and later… PP

Berkshire Hash House Harriers 30^th Year

Crikey! How do you concentrate four days of Hashing into one Gobsheet? On BH³’s 30^th anniversary weekend we were treated to a variety of venues, a tumultuosity of Trails and an extravaganza of events. And joined by our good friends from the Looe and Liskeard Hash – how good to see them! Starting with an historic run around Reading on the Friday evening, Hare Lonely beguiled the ignorant (of the town’s history) with a fedora-full of facts from the contemporary Oracle to the abbey’s ancient ruins (many of our older Hashers felt quite at home here…).

On Saturday we were treated to an excellent run around the area of Upper Basildon which, rather like Jordan, has an area or two of outstanding natural beauty. We were very lucky to enjoy a warm, sunlit afternoon as we scattered like chaff in the wind across rolling meadows and viewed some truly beautiful countryside clothed in varying textures of summer greens. And one truly excellent and unexpected mud pit by the Regroup. Now there were three trails that had been laid by C5, Mr Blobby, Zebedee, Florence and OldDog – white (Long), Blue (Medium) and Pink (Short). While the White Trailers led off one way the Blue Trailers were encouraged to Check it out through the mud slide, which of course we did. Unfortunately for them Zebedee had laid a False just after the pit but it was a) in white flour, and b) indecipherable. So many, including our good GM, BGB, slopped right through the damn thing and out the other side until called back by our doughty Hares. It was a lengthy and enjoyable set of Trails and we were all looking forward to the post-Hash showers in the excellent village hall. Thus the blokes (and I’m sure the ladies too) rushed for the changing rooms and ripped off their clothes, eager for the cleansing jets of steaming water. Oh the disappointment as each Hasher pressed their shower button to be greeted with a trickle of water that would have been beaten easily by a dehydrated dachsund. There were several answers to the dilemma – towel down and bugger off to get a beer, forget the towel; just bugger off and get the beer, or in SlackBladder’s case chuck your T-shirt in the only sink that had cold water running and use it as a very sloppy flannel that covered all the walls and any seated Hasher (that would be me then) in an alternate mixture of Hash tsunami and fine droplets depending on whether he was slapping the thing over his back or scrubbing the areas of which I shall not speak. It wasn’t a pretty sight but it got the job done and I felt lucky that I had just happened to have packed my mask, snorkel and wetsuit. You just never know when you might need ‘em! With a little help the showers came back on when only Slowsucker, Quack and I were there and we thoroughly enjoyed the monsoon of hot water coursing down our naked bodies (one for the ladies there). Since the theme of this event was ‘pearl’, for the 30^th anniversary, many Hashers were wearing pearl-inspired outfits or accessories. Heybabe had a note pinned to her back with ‘pearls’ of wisdom. Mr Blobby had a rather lovely pearl-buttoned blouse to go with his long skirt and Hamlet and Fukawe made a lovely matching pair in little black dresses, pearls and fishnets. The most amusing (and weird) sight of the evening was Hamlet sitting down rubbing his feet after dancing later on. The evening ‘do’ was great with a disco that played all those lovely old 60s and 70s records (a tinge of irony on my part there) that had everybody dancing – some in time to the music. The bravura performance of C5 as Elkie Brooks singing ‘Pearl’s A Singer’ with Zebedee as a demented Margarita Pracatan (even the wig looked like hers!) in a (too) short dress raised the roof. Especially when they began to strip and canoodle with members of the audience. Perhaps the most interesting outfit was worn by JWax who had opted for a very short shift-like object, worn over footless and rather revealing tights. However, Glittertits was highly impressed by it. It made such a stunning mental impression on him that he was later to be found dancing rather witlessly with Zebedee.. Good Food, beer and great company – a winning combination.

And on Sunday we were treated to a brilliant ‘novelty’ Hash laid by Simple, Katie and FannySniffer around Upper Bucklebury. This was great! Despite miserable weather we thoroughly enjoyed the thing. After pairing off with someone other than a usual partner we were given a sheet of university-level questions that would have foxed Bamber Gascoigne, Jeremy Paxman and the Archbishop of Canterbury all rolled into one. Having ‘completed’ this we were given further sheets to take out with us on the trail. One sheet contained half a question. The other had a grid where we were to fill in the names of Mr Men characters. The other halves of the questions and Mr Men pictures appeared on laminated notices at certain Checks during the Trail. Of course, the poor schlebs who either don’t have children or are too old to remember the books had no chance with the Mr Men pictures. Some became quite frustrated and I believe I saw the answer ‘Mr I don’t give a toss what his bloody name is’ being written down at one point. The ground was covered in shiggy, the rain lashed down at points, the paper we wrote on (despite the thoughtful provision of plastic covers) turned into a gelatinous mixture like bog paper, bogies and, um, bog water. But did we enjoy this? Oh yes we did! Especially when we got to the beer stop at FannySniffer’s house with beer, hot tea and cookies! After the Hash in the village hall we were treated to even more good food washed down with beer and soft drinks, followed by a virtuoso performance by Simple as RA (I had to say that, even though it’s true – he threatened to duff me up otherwise) where Katie was named Skidmarks, having left a pair of her undercrackers on a table at last week’s Hash. On a serious note for a moment this was the highly enjoyable pinnacle of the weekend’s achievements and I reckon we owe a vote of thanks to Simple, Katie and Fannysniffer for a job well done in difficult weather conditions. Thanks also should go to LoudandTasteless and Motox for the food and beer, to the main organisers BGB, C5 and LoudonTasteless, the helpers and washers-up and clearers-up and floor-sweepers and tables and chairs tidiers. Which includes most of the Hash personnel. We are a pretty good muck-in type of bunch aren’t we? So give yourselves a pat on the back. BH³ puts on yet another set of great events!

So we come to Monday’s Hash. Er, there’s not much space, Old Fart. Almost as little as the flour which lightly speckled the forest, field and tarmac where we ran. Huge downpours of rain had done the Hares no favours at all but, with their help, we got round the Trail quite well. And what another lovely part of the country to run round. Especially as the Pack kept mainly together even though Billy Bullshit was calling ‘On On’ wherever he was. On Trail or not. Silly Billy. No-one will ever believe him again :-)

My one abiding memory of the evening is of a lone Motox striding confidently and purposefully along a winding trail that led away from the Check and through a cornfield. With his dark form silhouetted against the sparkling embers of the dying evening sun it was like a real-life version of a Van Gogh. However, the artistic spell was broken when Old Fart called ‘On Back’. We trotted off in the other direction as Motox strode confidently and purposefully back. Our thanks to the Hares and my apologies for the lack of report. But we did thoroughly enjoy this Trail.

On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Dumper inestimably presented the following :-

Fell upon the drinks too

Up and Coming