Jenks Squirrel Motormouth Puddleduck Hashgate 2Bob Spot PartyAnimal Cap’n Haystax Bomber HeyBabe Lemming Mother Theresa Chopstix Foghorn Baldrick Eth Ms. Whiplash Salome The Tremblers Dribbler and Paddy the dog HairyMary Liam GBH CircuitBreaker Wally Shep Daisy and Gnarler the dog C5 Lonely and Beaver the dog Zebedee Florence BoPeep…too late Handful and extra late Cloggs…and Potty and Nutcracker in the pub

C5 figured prominently early on when showing his off-road driving skills and becoming stuck in the car park mud, only to be pushed out ignominiously by those two sturdy yeomen Baldrick and Lemming. Mind you, he didn’t abuse his position of RA by awarding himself a Down Down later. It was very nice to see HairyMary had flown in specially from Paris to be with us even though he conned me into buying him a BH³ rugger shirt – "I didn’t bring my cheque book". A likely story.

The morning was grey, damp and cold (rather like many of the Hashers at the Gather Round) and we shivered and jumped about, like fish on a slab, waiting until the smiling Squirrel returned. We gave him a polite ripple of applause and a hearty cheer. The other Hare, Jenks, gave us the usual old tosh about how wonderful the trail was before sending us on our way. Now Jenks is quite a good layer of trails but there are certain things it helps to know before embarking on one of his. Firstly, there’s no effin’ false (i.e. there are no F’s on the false trails). Secondly, he likes playing tricks on the pack. The latter appeared in the form of something rather large about half way round and much was the muttering and cursing as we realised the joke. More later…

Out of the car park we went, teeth chattering with cold, along the first long tract of tarmac. Half way down this most interesting part of the trail I became aware of a panting, a straining, a scrabbling noise. As it drew level I realised it wasn’t one of our more constipated members behind the hedge but Shep’s dog, young Gnarler (yes I know that’s not how you spell it) in a shoulder harness, gamefully butting along and dragging something solid. Ten yards of dog lead later and this turned out to be Shep. Also panting, straining etc. He had just managed to tell me, over his shoulder, that after a run with said Gnarler his arm gets six inches longer when the hound tired of his master’s voice and jerked him off (purely a mechanical term) down the road in a frenzy of arms and legs.

We reached the Goring Heath Post Office down another bit of tarmac and dived off into the bush. I had a bit of a chat with HairyMary who told me how he Hashes with both a Parisian bunch and a more out of town bunch. Presumably, in true Gaullist style they shout "Non Non" when they find the trail. Shortly afterwards we came to a very muddy bit and I showed Lonely and HeyBabe (she for the second time in two weeks) how to open a farm gate. They were suitably impressed. Now we were off into the forest and surrounded by logs, dogs and shiggy. We pelted up the track towards the regroup at a serene two m.p.h. which unfortunately enabled Wally to harangue everyone within earshot (that’s about a two mile radius). Foghorn and I glanced at each other. Oh for some stout pegs, rope, honey and an anthill.

Jenks played his first joke, in the form of a loop out from the regroup (through the shiggy) that came back to the regroup. How we laughed. We delved deeper into the wood, coming upon an excavation that Zebedee, Lonely, Foghorn, Daisy and Bomber were daft enough to slide into/climb out of. And then we popped out into a clearing where we could look out on to the river valley below. It was an amazing sight, with much more river than valley and people canoeing in the drowned fields. We all spent a goodly length of time cooing and pointing until we became embarrassed by our rampant lethargy and tripped off down the trail again. We met a lady rider on a large horse that was festooned with some tinsel and Zebedee, ever the gent, asked the lady rider where her bit was. Luckily for him, she didn’t slash him wildly with her whip and trample him ‘neath the mighty steed’s iron hooves. What a bounder!

At the next check we managed to lose Bomber, Spot, C5 and others, who went off in entirely the wrong direction – nice one, Hares. But Motormouth, Dribbler, PartyAnimal and I followed the other good guessers through the stud farm (past the curious gaze of coated Shetland ponies, horses and Jack Russels) to Jenk’s joke. This was a huge hill and full marks to HairyMary’s friend Liam who ran up a good half way. The joke was that, having reached the top, you had to come right down the other side and back round to the base where you had started. Jenks’s parentage was strongly questioned at this point and various suggestions were made as to how a pair of gardening shears and certain dangly parts of his anatomy could usefully be brought together. The picture shows you the sort of thing we had to scale.

From here it was up some steep leafy snickets – where the knackered HairyMary and Daisy kindly offered to let me past and out onto, yup, some tarmac with a series of checks before we crossed a couple of fields and found that lovely pig field of two weeks ago! Oh the shiggy trail was calf deep and wide. Lovely stuff. Baldrick managed not to trip over the electric wire this week but first Lemming fell arse over tit in the mire, closely followed by a desperately plunging HeyBabe, who was even more closely followed my me. So I can vouch for the slimepoop consistency of said shiggy. A request here. If anyone lays another trail in this area, please, please lead it up this track. It’s the best ever grade A shiggy. Oh, and lay on a video camera…

RA C5 presented the following :-