Wetbacks

Baldrick 2Bob Puddleduck C5 Hashgate Flash Ms. Whiplash Miranda and dog Emma TinOpener Spot HitchHiker Lynda Hamlet DumperBGB Cerberus Premature and dog Molly Motox Glittertits SixInches SlowSucker Cheating Squirrel Kevin TrainSpotter Anorak Florence Zebedee Lonely UptakeEffing

Slip Sliding Away…

Septic had the right idea. Get lumbered with the grandchildren so she couldn’t schlep through the rain, mist and shiggy. Then turn up at the pub after the Hash looking fresh, dry and rather smug. The rest of us stood about in the car park before the On Out dripping gently. Apart from Florence and (I think) Ms. Whiplash who had been ‘floured’ on the head by Foghorn for their incessant clucking and chattering during his Hare pre-Hash speech. Perhaps the most amusing sight before we started was the arrival of Lynda in a small but perfectly formed car. Out she got, grimacing at the rain. Then, from the passenger side, Hamlet unfolded his tall frame, rising stiffly erect (stop it girls – you know what I mean!). Then, amazingly, the well-built Dumper was unpacked from the back seat by the two of them and re-assembled like an Ikea unit. It was only later that they realised they had been short of a couple of bolts when his left leg fell off during a downhill cruise in the forest.

After an early false start – most of us tried to go out via the On Inn – we steamed out by the train station, following Cheating who was wearing his torn yellow Vivienne Westwood grunge cycle cape. Now Cheating got virtually every check right on this Hash so we can either applaud his intuitive perception or lambast the bugger for somehow living up to his name. Whichever it was, the unusual thing was that he stuck to the trail. If only the rest of us had been so lucky. An early example is a check on the forest path just beyond a left, uphill trail that led over a stile. SlowSucker couldn’t make his mind up whether to follow Cheating back to the stile path or not and dithered backwards and forwards like a plastic duck in a shooting gallery. Zebedee went forwards. Then back again. Uptake hung about hawking and spluttering with his cold. I went straight on and got to the third blob before being called back to the check to find various people staggering down the steep, forested hill towards the check, to the obvious despair of CallGirl who pointed out that they should have been going up the bloody hill for goodness’ sake! As a piece of trail-laying trickery it was second to none and we delighted in passing Dumper who was slowly slipping backwards like a slow-motion Peruvian mudslide until SlowSucker gave him a bunk-up (perhaps I could have phrased that better). The following Foghorn apologised unreservedly for the confusion. “I’m very sorry.” He said. I swear there was a glimmer of a smirk on his face.

There were a few more bits like this which served to keep us all together nicely. It obviously was working well when we had Flash pointing the FRBs in the right direction and TinOpener walking towards us when we were checking. This particular check saw Spot and myself following the receding Cheating canary who seemed to have found the trail but was not calling at all. How often have you heard him shouting “Keep calling at the front!”? Very much pot and kettle. He was right and we bumped into a small posse of SCBs consisting of Ms. Whiplash, HitchHiker, Miranda and new girl Sarah. They had obviously just checked it out and had not wished to spoil our fun. How kind. Spot and I Splodged on into more muddy forest, finding the Short/Long split. Stupidly of course, we took the Long. I should have stayed there since later on I found myself back at the same point! A wrong turn saw us caught up by Premature, SlowSucker, Zebedee et al and we crossed a very sticky field full of inquisitive heifers. Premature showed his prowess as a stockman when they got a little too close by seeing them off with a “Yeeharrr”. It certainly frightened the rest of us.

A fairly long old trot found us in familiar territory where we bumped into the flying GBH. How the hell he got there I do not know but he was going like a Welsh whirlwind downhill and we cannoned after him, slipping and squelching in the muddy track until we found a check. And here it went horribly wrong. It was already about 12:10 and could we find the trail? No we blasted well could not. As mentioned earlier, I went up to the Short/Long split followed tentatively by 2Bob, Puddleduck, C5 and Uptake. Premature and others cast about in the opposite direction. Zebedee and TrainSpotter hurtled off another way. A splinter group started heading back on a parallel path to that we had just come down. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth until Foghorn arrived and put us out of our misery although Uptake and I found ourselves rather higher than everyone else and had to crash down across the slippery arboreal debris to join the speeding bunch.

After the silence and peace of the forest it was a bit of a blow (literally) to pop out on to a steep, chalky field with a fierce wind. We caught up with the likes of Sarah, Effin and Ms. Whiplash, and poor Miranda whose dog Emma had disappeared for a bit of extra-curricular rabbiting. The legs were beginning to feel it by this time and we were glad when the trail began to dip down towards Goring. This also gave us a chance to enjoy the swoops and hills of the countryside as we cruised onwards. Across a playing field with SlowSucker and TrainSpotter chatting and into a well-maintained suburban enclave, little used to tired, wet Hashers shouting “On On!”. From here it was On Inn down the tarmac hill with the flying feet of Zebedee close behind and the awful sight of C5 trying to get his trousers off in the car park.

A fairly long old haul through difficult terrain this one. But lots of forest and mud and fun. Thanks Hares. On On. Hashgate.

Down Downs

RA Motox presented the following (as reported by the helpful C5) :-

Up and Coming

603808