Spex GBH Foot & Crotch Hashgate 2Bob HoneyAnt Chopstix Foghorn Baldrick The Tremblers C5 CircuitBreaker Danish (Annette) Rosemary and Kundun the dog (see below for name details) Dumper Septic Wally Iceman Eth Cheating Salome Ms. Whiplash Potty Nutcracker Gusset Hamlet Bomber Harimau Bob SlipperyDick Skids Dribbler Butterfly and Paddy the dog BoPeep George Zebedee Florence Heidi William Shep Daisy and Gnarler the dog BGB

So there I am, driving out past Reading’s magnificent Madeski football stadium and fast food outlet when to my left I spy the old canal, running along the edge of what used to be the rubbish dump. This ribbon of murky drainage is piled high, here and there, with iceberg-like clumps of evil smelling foam. Yet there on the bank sit the patient anglers eagerly eyeing their floats and awaiting a tug on their rods (as it were). No doubt they would be happy with a radioactive roach or a perilously polluted perch. Funny what some people do on a Sunday morning – which brings me to the Hash. It was dessicatingly cold in the car park. Fingers and toes were duly chilled to the marrow; or at least all mine were until that fine, big, warm hound Kundun sat on my foot while I chatted to Rosemary. His name, I found out, is a familiar name applied to the Dalai Lama meaning something like ‘Enlightened One’. And, yes, Rosemary is very pi**ed off with having to explain this and will be calling her next dog Rover. It was very nice to see SlipperyDick and Skids after a long absence and as usual they provided some fine humour as Skids exclaimed "I had it on the kitchen table". Very kind of her to share this snippet with us and it certainly made us laugh and her lame explanation that she was talking about her tick money was generally poo-poohed. A long time absentee called George arrived and promptly embraced all the women, grabbing buttocks left, right and centre – perhaps we should name him Slowhand? The Tremblers brought along the fragrant Danish, who used to Hash with us many moons ago. Nice to see her bac(k)on the trail…..oh, please yourselves.

To fight the cold we whipped off on the On Out and Bomber and I altruistically ran/lurched up the first false of the day. Swallowing some naughty words we eventually rejoined the already walking pack who circled aimlessly in a field, having lost the trail after a very obvious blob followed by no apparent flour at all. Everyone spotted the walkers and made a sheeplike rush towards them – apart from Zebedee, who went for a pee, and Paddy the dog, who skittered over towards me. "Ahh. Good old Paddy." I thought. What a fine old chap. This was just before he froze and squatted, his canine features rigid with concentration, extruding from his rear end the biggest….. Well I’m sure you catch my drift. Needless to say, that particular field will not require any soil enrichment for years to come. Butterfly told me later she’s got Paddy on a diet of cabbage and tuna.
The poor sod.

We cantered on and later happened upon a lush meadow by the river where Foghorn and Hamlet committed the fearsome sin of totally ignoring the false after the check. Yes, we all knew we would end up going that way but the rest of us didn’t want to spoil the Hares simple pleasure of watching everyone buggering off in the wrong direction. So we didn’t. Zebedee got a bit of it right but stopped and the rest of us squelched about for half a mile over the water margins and then squelched back to congratulate the bobble-hatted GBH on his clever trail laying. Shep and Daisy arrived at this point, dragging the poor exhausted Gnarler along (yes, there is a smidgeon of irony in that statement).

We pounded on along the river although Hamlet, Foghorn and I took a rather obvious wrong turning up a very muddy hill to a little church. Mind you, the view was very pretty and I took a moment to mentally inhale. It took a while to catch up with the pack, especially Baldrick who was rattling along like a tram. Florence mentioned that he is training for the Reading ½ . Looks to me like he’ll do it in style. No doubt he has a running plan….

Well, Foot & Mouth caught out Bob, Zebedee and Harimau well and truly at the check near the ford. But then you do expect to go through it if there’s one around. Nice double bluff by the Hares and by the time ole Zeb turned up at the regroup he looked at death’s door from all the catchup running! The regroup itself was at Spex’s beautiful house and gardens (open to the hoi poloi between April and September – sorry, no wheelchairs) and a fine selection of beer, water and choccy bars greeted us. We drank. We munched. We chatted. Chopstix and Gusset decided to make an early start so GBH quietly told them some early directions and off they trotted. Heh, heh. Not that quietly though, for I had overheard enough to shorten my own trail. So when we all ran off (except for Cheating, who had decided to run the first part of the trail backwards! I know. I think he’s bonkers too.) everyone shot off into the forest loop while I trotted gently along the road past the false ….. along with Bomber who came up with the pathetic excuse "I was just following you"! Well, prior knowledge is a great thing and I gave BoPeep, C5, BGB et al a beaming smile as they eventually caught up. We beasted off into the forest and down a steep trail spectacularly deep in glutinous shiggy, where we caught up with Chopstix and Gusset. They had stopped, to allow everyone else the pleasure of checking it out. How kind. From here back to the pub I had the pleasure of 2Bob’s company, meeting Bomber, Foghorn and Rosemary on the way. There was much water on the grassy track and we managed to catch Chopstix with a mighty splash at one point. This was just before 2Bob did his own mighty splash by falling arse over tit in a very muddy puddle, much to the amusement of Bomber and myself. Soon we crossed a pretty, three-arched river bridge and trotted past the fine, timbered gatehouse towards the welcoming sight of the pub.

RA C5 presented the following :-