Drexel and Maggie the dog Cerberus Danish ShitHappens C5 Hashgate Chopstix NipponTuck Foghorn The Tremblers Eth Ms. Whiplash LadyBird Steve BGB Chuck Scrumper Lorraine Claire Darren Caboose Dorthe Wally Paella Baldrick Mafia 2Bob Dribbler and Paddy the dog Motox Bomber Veronica Shep and Gnarler the dog Anorak Trainspotter Cheating Lonely and Beaver the dog Lonely’s brother’s family Zebedee Florence Greenfly. And later…Dumper Septic Squirrel Cap’n Haystax

This being Remembrance Sunday we stood in the warm November sunshine in respectful silence for two minutes from 11 o’clock.

This action was in stark contrast to the noisy (noisome?) arrival of Wally who drove up with his car window open, the sound system blaring forth "I’m A W**ker" as performed by Mr. Ivor Bigun. Perhaps the irony was lost on him but many people nodded in agreement as he rolled onanistically by, one hand on the steering wheel.

There was a good turn-out of the Hash, including visiting South Carolinan ShitHappens – named due to an accidental outburst by his parents immediately after his birth. Anorak and Trainspotter made a last visit before going off globe-trotting. We should congratulate Anorak for completing the New York Marathon last week – unlike Bomber who merely did the New York Hash before staggering drunkenly over to watch the real runners. But to the Hash. Following Ms. Whiplash’s witty and amusing Gather Round speech Drexel called the On Out, so several of us (myself, Foghorn, Chuck and Zebedee) trotted over to someone’s back gate in the vain hope that the trail might start there. It didn’t. Luckily, other people had been much more sensible so we hurtled back through the pack and followed them, occasionally diving off down the odd False trail – just for a bit of a warm-up you understand. Early on I came up behind two highly different people. The first was Dorthe, a neat, compact package wearing very nice bum-hugging shorts. The second was Baldrick, a badly-wrapped parcel wearing a thick black rugger shirt and a large pair of light blue shorts under which were dark blue tracksuit trousers tucked into black socks. It has to be said that, red sports car or not, his chances of pulling any crumpet (begging your pardon, ladies) wearing that outfit are perilously close to nil. Next time Baldrick, I want to see you in skin-tight lycra. Tell a lie. I’d much rather see Dorthe in skin tight lycra.

Led originally by Foghorn and BGB we dillied and dallied ‘neath the trees where many a check held us up. I got lucky with Cerberus (no, no, I mean in finding the trail) and we eventually zoomed over the road by the Dog and Duck just in time to see Ladybird execute a triple Lutz with much swearing as he crashed to the ground. A large hole full of leaves had leapt from the roadside and viciously tripped him although many blamed lack of attention caused by a surfeit of Saturday carpet-laying. Fortunately, the lad is made of sturdy stuff and soon regained his feet to limp onward. A certain amount of forest shiggy appeared and we cavorted through it to find the next check. Caboose and I took the stupid option and pasted up the hill. "On one." "On two." "On three." "On On." Yodelled Caboose. But his viagra-like confidence drooped limply as I pointed out the rather obvious ‘F’ he had just sped over. "It looked like an arrow." He grinned sheepishly. I gripped him firmly by the ear and led him back down the hill. Let’s have a little pertinent Haiku poetry at this point. As you know, the Japanese form consists of seventeen syllables divided into three sections of five-seven-five with the English form traditionally running as five-five-seven-five.

Now though many of us were ‘checking it out’ dementedly there were others who had time to ‘stand and stare’. Rather sadly, Florence and NipponTuck were overheard discussing mortgages, continuing in this vein until the ‘On’ was called. "Ho hum." They sighed. "I suppose we’d better join them." And off they jogged. It wasn’t long (for some of us) before the regroup appeared and we jollied and chatted in the warm sun. Baldrick and Dribbler suddenly appeared about fifty yards away, saw us waving and shot off into the bushes. We waited, tense with expectation. The dense holly to our left rustled, heaved and cursed. Dribbler and Baldrick were desperately trying to escape its prickly embrace. We tittered. The best was yet to come. They managed to heave themselves free and clamber spikily over the high fence but they had forgotten poor old Paddy who whined piteously at his master from the other side. Dribbler suddenly realised. "Crikey! I’ve forgotten the dog." He thrust his upper portion through the narrow middle of the fence, not realising that Paddy would never pull through the gap. We gaped with delight. Baldrick jumped to the top of the fence and leaned over to grab the back half of the wriggling hound. Ladybird saw his chance, rushed to the bent-over rear of Dribbler (who still had the front half of the dog) and gave him a fine pseudo-shagging. Fortunately, no animals were harmed in the making of this epic and old Paddy eventually made it to our side of the fence. Thanks for that, lads. It made our morning.

There was quite a lot of frenzied forest firkling after the regroup with much excellent shiggy. At one point in the forest I turned to take a step and went in up to the ankle, at which a huge spurt of the foul mixture anointed most of my leg. It was lovely stuff. The surrounding countryside was even lovelier, with autumn leaf-strewn woods giving way to still-green hills and dales. We ran and cruised, sometimes losing our way, but always enjoying the trail. The last item of interest was a field full of young bulls, where Cerberus informed us that "They’re more scared of us than we are of them". In fact, the opposite was true. As the black-faced, curious creatures sidled towards us more than one Hasher bolted for the stile (Dribbler). But we all got through safely and, as C5 and I turned on to the green in front of the pub he asked the somewhat metaphysical question "Is that where we are?" It was where we had been and where we were going and very nice it was to be there too. Er… Sometimes C5 is just far too clever.

Thanks a lot Drexel and Maggie. An excellent trail through fine country. Just what we like.

RA Motox presented the following :-