Old Ruins (and some younger ones)

Greenfly Barbara Spot Hashgate OldFart Tor Lynda Utopia Baldrick Neil Cerberus Hamlet & dog Jake Cap’n Y-Fronts & dog Tigger Bev Neil Nutcracker Potty Gutbucket Honeymonster C5 ShaginaJag HeyBabe(in business suit!) Chopstix Foghorn Dwight Spunky Mark and Ruth Dolly Linda Karen MudWoman TinOpener Simon Andy Ms. Whiplash Glittertits Pissquick Muff SlipperyNipple ShutupWally Itsyor Fiddler Dumper Septic Motox Butterfly Dribbler & dog Paddy Ben Caboose Tony Stan Centaur Florence Zebedee Flash…and much later BGB Cloggs

This Week’s Race

Figure 1 - A Roman Hasher surprised by the length of the trail

Most of us arrived at the well-publicized 7 o’clock. But there are always one or two, aren’t there? And tonight these two were BGB (aka Trailblazer…) and Cloggs who took ages to find the trail and then got caught following Greenfly, who was running a bit of the trail backwards! Why – God knows.

We all started off by getting totally lost, then zooming past Zebedee and the fragrant Florencewho had thoughtfully parked their car some fair way down the trail. Nice one chaps! Andy, Baldrick, Neil and I found the first bar, went back the requisite one blob (i.e. two metres), then spotted the standard check just around the corner from the bar! Baldrick dashed off down what he thought was the right trail – a man determined to make sure we all ran down the wrong trails. Sadly for him he got it totally wrong. Neil also disappeared, leaving me to find a sudden plethora of blobs and people like OldFart and Greenfly skipping lightly between them well ahead. How’d they do that? We cruised off like the clappers along a narrow, woodland trail, heading ever downhill and hit the next mother of all checks, with a bar going off one way, falses the other and no-one quite sure where to go. We eventually had to run over this wooden ramp/bridge object and jump into reasonably damp shiggy. Quite fun. But will be even better in winter. A nostril-wrinkling trot by the sewerage works followed, which Gutbucket enjoyed tremendously. It may have been the effect of this that later caused him to try to leap into a bush.

We raced on to the regroup… and stood around in a sad bunch waiting for the second group, led by Motox, to arrive about ten minutes later. To digress a bit, I do think that recent Hashes have become a bit too much like races. It’s entirely our own fault. Some of us go tearing off at the speed of light leaving everyone else behind. I think Lonely has got it right. He’s a more than fairly, fit f…ellow yet is usually seen on the Hash chatting in the middle of the pack. Isn’t this more in the spirit of Hashing rather than racing off in a somewhat anti-social manner? I certainly include myself in this criticism particularly since it means I miss a lot of action in the pack that I should be reporting on. May I make an appeal to the FRBs to slow down? We need mud fights, water sports(careful now!), horsing about general fun mayhem.

Anyway, back to the Hash. Some serious short-cutting across harvested field by Gutbucket, Cap’n Y-Fronts, Spot and, of all people, Centaur saw us to a road check by a beautiful thatched cottage with an enammelled butterfly on its chimney where Zebedee and I duly drifted off up a longish false. We drifted back to take our time and view the immaculate cottage named Abbott’s Dwell. No doubt owned by Mr. Monk. We stumbled our way across a corrugated field where Muff and Glittertits were ambling across. “I’m waiting until it smooths out before I run.” Quoth Glittertits, which seemed very wise given Gutbucket’s subsequent trip and attempted bush leap. Tony and I enjoyed the brief cabaret while we toiled ever onwards, suddenly coming upon the clever people who had taken the short cut across the FRB loop. ShaginaJag and Barbara also appeared ahead of us. They were standing by a gate and breathing heavily. I didn’t spot the Jag nearby so I assume they had just been walking rather quickly. The check here split the pack completely since it took us a while to find the trail. C5, Greenfly and Hamlet (“We can get to the pub this way.”) shot off across a false while Caboose and I did the decent thing by running back. Sadly, this led us near to ShutupWally who was giving poor Chopstix a right earful. We ghosted by, not wanting the same treatment and were rewarded(?) with a 6-blob trot along the Roman wall to a false. Virgins Mark and Ruth were thoroughly confused and a tad miffed with this blatant not-in-the-rulebook piece of trail-laying but as I pointed out – there are no rules! We eventually got back and greeted the splinter group that included Spot and Neil as they trotted in to jocular applause. I must mention here a serious assault on Caboose by a fearsome insect with particularly large gnashers. We didn’t find the damn thing. Presumably it had landed on the lad, feasted mightily on the succulent flesh of his leg and dropped off having become mightily pissed by the amount of alcohol coursing through his veins. I enquired solicitously of Caboose later, “Do you have a big lump?” He looked up in a somewhat disturbed manner. “Is it very swollen?” He moved cautiously away, looking at me sideways. It’s worrying how some people’s minds work, isn’t it?

So. A lovely night and fine countryside and, despite the speed at which we ran, a thoroughly enjoyable trail. Our thanks to Lonely and Tweenie for their efforts.
On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Motox presented the following :-

Up and Coming

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