Young and Old

Donut Hashgate Wendy Phil Cerberus Billy Bullshit Desperate Spot Hitchhiker Ms Whiplash Motox Itsyor OldFart Nappyrash PP and dog Barney Effin Lonely Bootsie and dog Coco OldDog Charlie and baby Jess C4 Glittertits Pissquick Simple Skids Potty Nutcracker BGB Zebedee Florence TT2 Chopstix Shandyman Penny Pitstop Shitshoveller Hamlet Fukawe Baldrick JWax Iceman Maggot Fannybag Bogbrush The Tremblers Snowballs Honeymonster and dog Max LoudonTasteless Spex Gnomealone Handful Dave Sue Titanic Whinge TC Dunny Rampant Rabbit

Forest Grump

Oh dear. This one is all from memory since I think I left the recording machine in the pub. A Hash, a few pints and a decent lunch relaxed the Hashgate brain cell a little too much. Either that or I caught senile decay from sitting next to C5 while munching my leg o’pork. Considering it was a substitute for the trio of kangaroo sausages that both he and I had been looking forward to it was rather tasty and rounded off what had been a most enjoyable Trail through Bramshill plantation. We have, of course, been there many times but this fairly thickly wooded area with its ditches and paths and the ever-popular ford provides the Hares of the day with almost an infinite number of ways to confuse the FRBs and please the Pack.

Add to that the bright and breezy weather after Saturday’s driving rain and there is a recipe that puts the kangaroo sausages in the shade, as it were. C5 and Slowsucker, being RA and GM respectively, had multiple roles on the day. Though C5 was also acting as grandad to the delightful Jess, two-year old daughter of his and C4’s daughter, Charlie. The little girl was as bright as the day and as cute as a wagonload of monkeys; very well behaved despite being surrounded by a shuffling horde of old fogeys. Fortunately for C5 Spot kindly agreed to step into the RA role though he may have slightly regretted it. BH³ was in voluble mode today and the poor bugger could hardly get a word in. Slowsucker had the same problem at the Gather Round. Perhaps the wagonload-of-monkeys thing had infected the Hashers.

You may remember that last week we had a grumpy old git who seemed intent on proving just how curmudgeonly one can be if one sets one’s mind to it. We had another this week. We hadn’t been going long when we chanced upon a lady seemingly dragging two horses along a track that ran at 90 degrees to ours. Her face was even longer than the larger horse who, along with his pony friend, did not seem particularly impressed at being hauled along by someone with a small thundercloud over her head and a face like a llama with colic. Behind the merry group stumped a small girl in riding clothes and wearing a pout like the lower lip on an unhappy trout. Chopstix, friendly lady and horse lover that she is, offered to assist the girl back into riding position but was given a rather large flea in her ear and a general fulmination about people who run about in forests, enjoying themselves and scaring horses. If we had known the horsewoman owned the forest and all rights to it we would of course have bowed, scraped, wrung our caps and backed respectfully away, tugging our forelocks. But we maintained our Hash composure, merely arching an eyebrow or two (no, we didn’t arch two eyebrows. That would look very silly. Just some of us arched an eyebrow) and dived off into the serried saplings. There are some very strange horse people – I speak from long years of experience. One of them once told me she’d rather have her hair dragged through the horseyard (with her attached presumably) than teach my daughter how to ride. Takes all sorts I suppose.

Having dove into the thicket we all duly enjoyed crunching through the twigs, branches and pine needles that littered the forest floor and hid all the ankle-sucking holes, the Ms Whiplash-like SLAP of the sinewy young branches thwacking into our necks-ears-arms-bellies and the skin-stinging feel of those sharp furze bushes (not too handy if you are wearing only lycra on your bottom half). Trembler, particularly, gained intense enjoyment from the experience when he emerged from the forest into a (fortunately dry) ditch and attempted to rush up and out of it on to the wide track. Perhaps he was a little keen to reach terra firma again and he totally ignored the lines of brambles running up the side of the ditch. One minute he was bursting up into the free air with the elastic litheness of a young gazelle. The next he crashed to earth like the proverbial felled ox. He’s done this before right in front of me and both times I’ve felt a ripple underground and had to brush the pine needles from my shoulders after they had been dislodged from the surrounding trees. Fortunately, Trembler is made of stout stuff and he was up and off again before you could shout, “earthquake”.

There was quite a lot of this before we got to the Regroup although a few longish trots in the hot sunshine got us sweating. Rather useful for me since I needed to rid myself of a smallish hangover that had wandered into my mental drawing room overnight and and was dancing a fandango in big, dirty boots. From the Regroup the Long and Short(er) Trails beckoned, with those taking the Long knowing that it was only a matter of time before they had to go through the ford. The rest opted for the (not too) Short route, with Cerberus taking on the loop that appeared in the middle of it. Not sure why. Everyone else wandered happily over the three Fs that were there to force everyone to ‘enjoy’ the loop. We would have called her back but husband Billy persuaded us not to do so, saying that she would only be disappointed if she had missed it out. Somehow, I got the impression that Billy’s Sunday roast might not be forthcoming that afternoon…

Donut and I had brought along today’s virgins, Wendy and Phil, and it was interesting to gain their views into the day’s entertainment. It’s not often that you meet up with bunch of people whose idea of fun is to run round a damp forest all morning, frightening horses and the like, strip off in the car park, then consume reasonable quantities of booze and food before disappearing their various ways. Most interesting to them was probably the group we met just as we were about to leave the pub. Opposite the door sat one of the most disreputable, and fairly pissed, group of reprobates it has ever been my pleasure to meet. Potty, Nutcracker, Skids, Simple, Snowballs, Pissquick and Glittertits drifted happily on a sea of alcohol (though, of course, the ladies were demure and reserved). Going near them all was an invitation to spar verbally. You had to be damn fast on your mental feet. And I couldn’t possibly report in this respectable organ any of the discussion, debate and oral brickbats (anyone got any idea what a ‘brickbat’ is, by the way?) that were flying around. My companions came in end the end of a remark by Potty that finished, “… like what you don’t get at home: lobster thermidor and a blowjob.”
The group embodies the spirit of Hashing – drinkers with a running problem.

Damn fine Trail C5 and Slowsucker. Good job done. On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Spot presented the following and if I could remember them all I’d have included them.

Up and Coming