Wet And Slippery

Honeymonster Dribbler Butterfly Cerberus Billy Bullshit Lilo TinOpener Mother Theresa Lemming Swallow Motox Iceman Loudon Tasteless Spex OldFart Hitchiker Potty Nutcracker Snowballs Slowsucker Paula(now Horny) Gaffertits Glittertits Pissquick Skidmarks Simple Dumper Septic Caboose Drac Ms Whiplash Salome Blowjob Slackbladder Jill Foghorn Karen Itsyor Fiddler Nappyrash Chopstix Shandyman

The Hares’ Tale

You think you have it all organised. Hall booked. Keys ready to pick up. Cheque ready for payment. Food bought. Flour (plenty of!) bought. Music organised. Helpers asked to help. RA has the beer for Down Downs. Plenty of car parking. No last minute change of venue (Cheating please note…) What could go wrong? Well, nothing went wrong but Sod’s Law intervened in the form of blankets, sheets and curtains of rain. Meteorologically, it was the John Lewis soft furnishings department. Donut and I had decided to lay most of the Trail on Saturday for three reasons: 1) we saw no reason to rise any earlier than necessary on Sunday morning 2) why get soaking wet twice? 3) Donut had the mother of all colds. Regarding 3) it was both very worrying and rather amusing. The poor girl’s voice had gone and her brief ejaculations in the gusty conditions alternated between a squeak and a growl. It was like laying a Hash with someone who was a combination of Minnie Mouse and Lee Marvin. BH³ should applaud her efforts in dragging her suffering carcass round the trail. I seriously thought of purchasing a small handcart to wheel her around the last mile or so. But we got the Trail finished, placing most of the flour on trees and under bushes to try and minimize the effect of the coming downpour. What fun it was laying in bed later that evening listening to the gusting raindrops rattling on the roof tiles and spattering heavily on the windows. Surprisingly, not all the flour had disappeared when we went out to freshen some of it up on Sunday morning.

And was it raining? Oh yes it was. Did it stop us from Hashing. Of course not! We sloshed out on to the playing field with all the aplomb of any of our web-footed friends but none of the waterproofing. The clod-footed drag up the first sticky hill sorted out the almost-fit from the 60-a-day crowd. The problem for the Hares, of course, was not knowing if the ‘F’ further on on the two-way Check had disappeared. Or if the Long/Short split marking across the field had washed away in the pleasantly tumbling waterfall that yesterday had been just a damp path. Which meant that one had to run like a bear with its bum on fire to catch up with the FRBs and point them the right way. Having laid that Long loop yesterday I felt it only right that I gave the Short Trailers the full benefit of my assistance and plodded up the track with Dribbler, Butterfly and Dumper. Only to be viciously attacked by a tendril of brambles that wrapped themselves round my neck. Having untangled myself and given the spiteful vine a verbal lambasting that included a lengthy diatribe on its lack of attributable parentage I asked Dumper to inspect my tender skin for any spikes of bramble. He leant forward. He inspected. He offered his opinion. “It’s ok, Hashgate. You‘ve only got a little prick.” You wonder who your friends are sometimes, don’t you?

On reaching the road we met Chopstix and Shandyman, who were driving to the Memorial Hall. They looked very comfy in their nice, warm car. It was tempting to heave into the back to ‘help with directions’ and drip all over the plush seating. They appeared later, walking and all dressed up in warm, dry coats and boots. What a damn good idea. I decided to leave the Short trailers and run up into the village to see if the FRBs had got completely lost or had found the previously freshened one-blob Check and the Trail. They had, all but Billy Bullshit who for some perverse reason had decided to run in entirely the wrong direction – rather like the golden-eyed and lead-brained deer who thunder down this road at night towards my headlights. Mind you, there were others, like Cheating and Slowsucker who bounded down an alley over a well-marked False (well, it was marked on Saturday) despite my best attempts to call them back. Fortunately, they headed up towards the Regroup. Now Lemming had promised Mother that, if he splashed anyone, he would have to cook Sunday dinner and he had been very restrained up to now. I decided to test his resolve and dashed a small tidal wave of muddy puddle up his left peg. If his resolve thus far had been a proud man-o-war with sails snapping in the wind and pennants streaming it was now a tattered hulk dashed upon the rocks with the rats streaming off it in droves. He leapt around from huge puddle to huge puddle, splashing left, right and centre and planning the evening menu. The FRBs grumbled their wet way back down the hill up which they had come. The sensible ones trotted off down the ginnel (a word that I am assured by Donut is similar in meaning to snicket) over a couple of wide and wet fields, then plunged into damp and dripping forest to meet up with the Long Trailers.

I was somewhat pleased as a Hare when, a little later, Simple and Karen and a gaggle of FRBs reached that three-way Check in the field and all decided to go left and right instead of, as Cheating rightly pointed out, straight on. Having laid a reasonably length ‘F’ to the left and an ‘F’ to the right along a narrow track festooned with barbarous stinging nettles it seemed only fair that others should enjoy the opportunities that either offered. Since the real trail did go straight on I was rather surprised when NappyRash came running back. “Umm. Why are you running back?” I asked. “Cheating said it probably didn’t go that way.” He replied, more than a little sheepishly. Well he might. Anyone who gets the wool pulled over their eyes by Cheating deserves the wry eyebrow treatment.

The Short Trailers at the next split in the forest should congratulate themselves on their keen insight and their ability to make first-class decisions. I’m afraid we just had to lead the FRBs all the way down that twisty, steep hill to Harpsden… and then back up again via the seemingly steeper and certainly slipperier chalk, mud and water track. I believe my own parentage was put into question by one or two of the hardy souls. A touch more soaking forest, another short Regroup and we were off across a field where the farmer had planted a swathe of huge golden sunflowers that sparkled and nodded in the rain. The Hash ladies were particularly impressed. At least it took their minds off the weather. Now the next bit should have been a doddle. Bar Check on the trail in the small, square forest. A nip through the trees. And back on to the trail again. Hmm. Not quite. Somehow I managed to lose the entire Pack in there. It was only a chance sighting of a lost and forlorn SlackBladder that got most of them back. Though not all. So Donut very kindly waited in the rain and I ran back to call as loud as I could (ask Spex what it’s like to be next to a Hashgate call!). The forest glowered wetly at me, arching its leafy back and beckoning me once again into its gloomy interior with crooked, woody fingers. Was that a hiss of ghostly laughter? Did I hear a stick snapping under a sly foot? Trying not to stand with my back to the forest I carved an arrow in the mud with my shoe – no flour left you see. Should I wait? Should I call again? What awful thing might be drawn out of that dark interior… Sod that for a game of soldiers. I sploshed back to the now sodden Donut and we tramped damply back to the hall where, of course, everyone else had returned, was changed, dry, warm and supping hot coffee and ale.

My thanks to everyone who helped us with this Hash and, of course to everyone who turned up. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Glittertits presented the following :-

Like lightning!

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