Babes in the Woods

Cerberus Desperate Donut Hashgate OldFart GnomeAlone Itsyor Motox Slapper NoSole Ms Whiplash Pissquick Poca and baby Finn NipponTuck with children PuppyPenis CallGirl Foghorn DragonLady Bogbrush Fannybag Alan ChocChuck Richard CrustyToasty NappyRash Cheating Whinge TC Nutty Potty Dribbler Butterfly Scratchy Florence C4 PennyPitstop Mrs Blobby Utopia SkinnyDipper Swallow Slowsucker Slippery Snowballs Dunny Rampant TinOpener Florence Chopstix Shandyman Dorothy Twanky Iceman Spex LoudonTasteless Lungs Julie (now NearlyTwice) JJ Aqua Diver MessengerBoy Hamlet WoodenTop Lynn Apologies that I missed some people – the recording machine gave up the ghost rather early on. After nine years or so it may be time for a replacement. Be prepared for a rise in the cost of the Tick 

A Twist of the Trail

The England flags fluttered gaily from either side of the car in front. Presumably, I mused, the occupants’ appreciation of dates was no match for their supporters’ fervour for the England-Ukraine match that was to take place tomorrow night. I might have known they were Hashers. We drew into the crowded car park and Desperate and Cerberus alighted, looking keen and eager. Well they might. It was a beautiful June evening for once. No hint of the cold and rain that had plagued us recently. Almost everyone had arrived early or on time. Except a couple of people. I guess it runs in the family. Zebedee appeared, on his bike, just as we staggered back up the hill at the finish. And TT2 arrived well after everyone else had finished, blaming the closure of bridges and the need to drive into Reading, then out again. Give him his due, though. He ran round the Trail by himself, bleating sad little “On On”s. The old philosophical question is ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no-one hears it fall, does it make a sound?” Similarly then, ‘If a TT2 runs round a Hash Trail in the forest and no-one sees or hears him, did he actually do the running?” An interesting metaphysical conundrum upon which you may wish to ruminate.

Our Hares tonight were Mr Blobby and C5 who have laid more Trails than most of us put together. And it showed. This was a humdinger of a Trail. An exciting, mud-strewn, twisting, serpentine, helter-skelter pelt through forest both wet and dry. However, the start had us all cursing, those of us with breath to speak that is. After an initial nip down the tarmac hill and a muddy splatter up a False on what turned out to be the On Inn we had to On Back and heave our not-yet-warmed-up bodies up the huge hill behind the pub. Shandyman, who had been chatting, had to slow to a walk, citing that “I can’t run, think and talk at the same time.” Itsyor gaspingly wondered what he had done to deserve this. C5 advised me that he had had to run the thing twice in one day, folllowing a 10k the day before, and was actually more knackered than anyone else. We of course offered commiserations and agreed that, yes, we felt so sorry that he had to run so much. What a shame it was. Oh yes indeed.

The Hares knew the forest paths well so there were quite a number of shortcuts from Checks for the walkers and the lazy, and quite a number of much longer loops for the runners and the hard of thinking. One such had us detour off a wide track into a fairly waterlogged area with little rivulets crossing the Trail. Wetland creatures stared in amazement as dryland creatures sploshed, skidded and slipped through their watery domain. Here a coypu stared in whiskery, toothed amazement. There a dugong raised a doleful head, pausing his chewing of a mouthful of sodden sedge to marvel at the antics in front of it. There was quite a lot of this off-pisteing which resulted in us slow-walking and high-leg lifting through the thick undergrowth while having a bit of an old chatter. “It was quite a bang.” I heard Desperate say enthusiastically to Slowsucker. Which was more than a bit confusing initially until I realised she was describing how he had whacked his knee a few weeks ago. Fortunately, it seems to be better now and he didn’t seem to be stiff at all.

We crunched and clacked our way through an area where, according to Shandyman, young trees had been lifted wholly from their growing places, leaving behind knee-deep holes and lots of stones. Fannybag stepped gingerly in front of me, understandably trying not to break an ankle, when suddenly she twisted backwards in slow-motion and sat down on a tree stump. She blamed it on the terrain but it was pretty obvious to all of us that she just fancied a bit of a rest.

Our Hares had let us know earlier that the Trail was a mere 5¾ miles long but with all the twists, turns and Bars it was beginning to feel a lot longer. Then some of us got lucky. On entry to a pleasant meadow a number of us angled off left while others went straight on. Curiously calls of “On On” came from both directions. I reasoned with Cheating that the angled track probably rejoined the straight on track and, even though he agreed with me, I took that option, which proved to be the right decision. We staggered perspiringly onwards, finally reaching the top of the rutted, water-running track where we had originally run up to a False so long ago. The On Inn was not too far down it and we all waved at Zebedee as he cycled manically past us.

The pub was darker than the inside of a Motox plimsoll – though a lot better smelling – and Cerberus busied herself ferrying round large bowls full of Hash chips that the pub had kindly agreed to provide despite not doing food on Mondays. She was the Gunga Din of french fries. The Hash ‘nippy’ who I’d very much like to see in a Joe Lyons waitress outfit. It was quite interesting eating by braille; wavering a hand in the gloom towards Cerberus’ proferred bowl, fingertipping the edge of it (or apologizing to her for an inadvertant fumble), then plunging the hand in to grasp a fistful of chips before uttering a mighty oath as the fiery hot potatoes blistered the skin before scattering them carpetwards and sinking said hand into one’s pint. It’s a wonder any of us got to eat or drink anything.

A truly enjoyable Hash and our thanks go to Mr Blobby and C5 for hosting it. On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Motox presented a masterclass in chairing the Down Downs, presenting the following:-

A tad leaky but a fine effort

Up and Coming