HairyMary Hashgate Motormouth Spot OrganGrinder HeyBabe PartyAnimal C5 Dribbler Butterfly (but no Paddy!) Jenks Liz Ms. Whiplash Whinge Eth Salome Chris Khazi Phil SpeedBumps BakewellTart Florence Zebedee TT2 2Bob HoneyAnt Puddleduck Cap’n Haystax OldFart Itsyour Wally Baldrick Squelchy Amanda CarlRigby Dumper Septic Steamer Squirrel Lord Lucan Richard Buffalo StickyDicky PonyExpress BoPeep Foghorn LeVoisin TinOpener Chopstix Honeymonster Iceman Lonely and Beaver The Cuddles family Potty Nutcracker Gusset

Thanks to last week’s total lack of interest following my request for an objective temporary scribe and a unanimous show of hands following C5’s suggestion that I write this week’s Gobsheet you get my view of this rather fine Hash. Lucky old you. For his very first essay at laying a trail HairyMary had ordered some particularly fine weather for the evening and organised a pub with excellent beer, food and a good-sized car park. What he couldn’t foresee was the petrol shortage. But it was pleasing to see many Hashers who had travelled a fair way. Thanks for turning up.

Now we had started trail laying at 4 o’clock. The fat sun scorched through thin cloud and oppressive heat lurked with intent in the heavy forest. Crikey! It was hot. Instead of dropping dry floury drifts the sweat on my hands was turning it to miniature Yorkshire puddings. Half way round my right hand had turned white with frighteningly alien, dangling blobs on each finger tip. HairyMary was luckier – he was using a plastic squirty thing that worked very well until he squeezed too hard once and the top fell off. Still, it certainly made one of his shoes look very clean for a while! We finished around 6 o’clock; which was nice, since we could have a quiet pint and a chat, secure in the feeling of a job well done and my personal knowledge that I didn’t have to rush home and sort out Motormouth as 2Bob had very kindly agreed to pick him up on the way. What a fine chap. Spot turned up so we had a chat with him. Then OrganGrinder. Then HeyBabe. And PartyAnimal. Our pub garden bench table turned into a party area and we learned some very interesting things…..read on.

Spot mentioned that he had absolutely stuffed Wally in the Long Barrow race recently, despite the fact that he had stopped once to tie up a shoe lace and once for a wee. Sounds like he could have got the garden chair out and read a good book too. Perhaps Wally should go on a training course. OrganGrinder revealed the source of his cognomen after a little gentle probing from myself. It turns out he was named thus after being caught by the RA of a Hash indulging in some horizontal sand surfing with a damsel of the opposite sex. But the best part of our when the Hash began to arrive en masse. HairyMary, PartyAnimal and I stood up from our side of the table…and HeyBabe, OrganGrinder and Spot see-sawed slowly downwards on their side! Well worth a photo.

But to the Hash. Despite that merry skinhead Jenks describing the pub as ‘crap’ in front of virgin trail layer HairyMary the air was generally happy and expectant. The first part was meant to be a three-legged, er, leg so people had been asked to bring ties or similar. Wally and Baldrick wore (respectively) lurid and Seventies Man At C & A neck furniture. Amanda beckoned me over furtively and slid one out of her running shorts (a moment to treasure!) Florence wandered eagerly about with hers, looking for someone to be in bondage with. Puddleduck had agreed but he was too young even for her. In the event nobody tied up with anyone else! But who cared? It’s a free country. On Out they went. Now some kindly soul (I know who you were!) had called ‘On On’ over one of the first falses so all the Baarkshire sheep flocked off in completely the wrong direction leaving HairyMary and myself to lay an arrow, smoke a fag and await the return of the pack. Great was the wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth, though people like TT2, Zebedee and Greenfly found it hugely amusing. So did we. Off we all went into the first forest.

The first regroup appeared and no-one (I was told) ran over the spoil heap. You should have. It was great fun. 2Bob and the boys ran off down one false. Lord Lucan and Steamer ran off down the other. Phil asked for a nod in the right direction, the cheeky blighter, and the pack streamed off. Well we shot through shiggy, forged through forest and ferreted through fields. Liz and BoPeep in particular power-walking ‘cross the countryside. Poor HoneyAnt had (literally) had a bellyful at teatime and dyspepsia had set in. SpeedBumps lived up to her name. Did I mention that The Impostor turned up with kids Andrew (good little runner) and Lizzie. He’s called The Impostor because his name’s Dave Sinclair – the same as C5’s!

RA C5 presented the following :-

It is a bit late. On the cycle ride/picnic/rounders outing on September 3^rd, BH³ stuffed Team Kennet 29-25 in the rounders match. Hoorah and well done!