Cerberus and Molly the dog Mick Iceman Baldrick Dumper Hashgate TT2 Harimau LeVoisin Eth CircuitBreaker Handful Ms. Whiplash Salome C5 GBH Lesley Steve Judy Spex SlipperyDick Tacky Bollox Martin Greenfly Barbara OldFart Steamer Motox BGB Drexel Einstein SpeedBumps BakewellTart Khazi Dribbler Kay Scrumper Butterfly and Paddy the dog HoneyMonster Mafia Mr and Mrs Blobby GutBucket Utopia Lynda Shirtlifter Chuck Zebedee Florence Libby Itsyor Paella Cheating Carl MotherofLittleEinstein FannySniffer

I hope Cerberus and Mick will forgive me for beginning this with a brief salute to those intrepid (not to say misguided) souls who joined me for the Summer Tough guy on Sunday. Despite the heat of the day and the difficulty of the course they all soldiered on with smiles and good humour. Albeit the smiles were of the Frank Bruno variety after being hit by Mike Tyson. Mr. Blobby, his son Ian, Gutbucket and Zebedee all did very well, especially Gutbucket and Ian who proved to be exceptional submariners and rope monkeys, respectively. Mrs. Blobby kindly came and provided support and indeed we needed a support after we had finished. She must have had an even harder time than us, what with all that standing about in the sunshine in beautiful countryside watching a lot of lunatics trying to fall off ropes and get covered in mud. Talking of which, Zebedee should be renamed as Mudlark. He not only managed to lose his shoe in the first pit of shiggy and fall over in several others, but deliberately handed off my good self Jonah Lomu-style as I jumped on to his large floating hay bale in a pit of the foulest liquid. I disappeared ‘neath the swarming shiggy, messing up my hair no end. Thanks, Zeb. Well done you people and thankyou for joining me. You’ve earned the medals and a lot of respect.

And so to the Hash. Lots of people, a hot night, a good pub and a well-laid trail were the ingredients for this event. Plus the Hares had very unsportingly not laid the outbound start the usual way! This buggered up a good many people and great was the gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair as they returned ruefully from their abortive sojourn round the back of the pub. Curiously enough, it was GBH who got it right. Over the A4 and into the trees for a novel loop that (surprise, surprise) brought us back to the A4 and over into the Steam Rally fields. Mr. Blobby and I agreed that, during this early part of the Hash, we would do a little less checking and a bit more standing around since our knee joints and various leg muscles were creaking worse than an old barn door in a gale. So having crossed the A4 in a manner not recommended in the Green Cross code everyone had a bit of a walk in the field and it was only down to Tacky’s sharp eyes that we spotted a blob of flour on a sun-stiffened cowpat, got on the trail …and walked up the hill and into the trees. This laid back style continued with me following TT2 who was following Judy through the tangled forest path. It was quite a nice trot through the ferny glens. Until we lost the well-marked trail and were unable to see the bloody great check on the unmade road in front of us. If Mick hadn’t arrived and called the On we’d have been fannying around for ages. Luckily the trail led downwards and we took heart in the brief respite, despite knowing we were soon to go back up again. CircuitBreaker found some rope and literally skipped her way to the regroup, where we met up with the walkers. Nicely done, Hares.

Poor Chuck was nursing a dog bite to the leg, sustained while laying a trail, so couldn’t run. I believe the beast may have to be put down. Having bitten Chuck it started foaming at the mouth and vets are baffled at the number of diseases it seems to have caught. Scrumper arrived late tonight, looked at the trail, looked at the pub, made the right decision and decided to get pissed instead of run. Well done, sir! Harimau let slip the fact that he owns a restaurant in Phuket (no it’s not pronounced like that!) so have a quiet word if you want a reservation near the window. I shall be away in USA for the next three Hashes so my thanks go to Florence for being volunteered by Dumper agreeing to write a couple of Gobsheets.

RA C5 presented the following :-

19/08/01 11:00 - Cycle ride from Goring station (gridref: 603806). See Motox or BGB for details.