Wednesday 18 November 2009

Villages, Rivers and Hills

After two legs of our three-on-the-trot hash programme we can sit back and reflect on being fairly lucky with the weather and running through some pleasant rural locales.
On the 8th, Matt and Lynn (Rhythm Stick and Yankee Doodler), expertly mentored by the old hand of Sue/Horny, took us to the village of Rates, a lovely little place in nice countryside that seems to be particularly well looked after by its council, which has placed information boards and walking route markers around its historical features. Unnoticed by all bar Bunbasher, the walking route provided the framework of the hash. At one point, Alan 'Never-a-Fokker' Roberts turned to me and said, "You know, he's amazing. He has an uncanny instinct for the right direction." Well, not necessarily - he's just observant.
This was one on which I hobbled slowly with what turned out to be an abdominal muscle strain that steadily grew worse. The drizzle was light but fairly persistent, although it let up for the pit stop, which was in an old, cobbled lane beside a water pump that somehow kept half the hashers happy for ten minutes or so, bless them. The rain started to increase just after we finished, but, unknowingly, the hares had provided shelter and nice, clean toilets for the down-downs and changing for lunch. This was the moment for Sandra to be named, as she duly was, as Poppycock.
Then last Sunday we headed up the Douro for another three-hared hash, with two first-time hares, Wim (Family Jewels) and Poppycock (spelled Poopycock all week in Hard Drive's e-mails), supported by Mrs Slocombe, whose thirtieth birthday it also happened to be. The rain that lashed down virtually all night and day held off completely whilst we hashed and down-downed, which was nice. Wim proved to be a slow learner when he trotted off in the right direction immediately at the first checkpoint (reminiscent of Matt checking the wrong way mid-way round his own hash the previous week). String-thieves proved a blight on this one, also given character by probably the first hash done in green wellies (Sandra!). It was a very nice area, again, despite the hills, and a scramble or two.
Next week the Hills take us. Hopefully we will get a big turn out.
On, on.

Tuesday 3 November 2009

The season of chilly hashes

The weather seems to have changed, and we appear to be in the season of blustery running, when you relish that change into warm clothes and bundling into cosy restaurants for the bash. Plunger and I got back from our little half-term trip to Andalucia to find that Halloween seemed to have frightened off the hares, so there was no hash last week. Sitting in our damp, smelly flat on Sunday (no that wasn't just our hasing trainers hanging around - we got back from our trip to find that we had had three thousand litres of water flood it the week before), with no hash to do, we twiddled our restless thumbs and thought about what we might do for the Jingle Bells in a few weeks' time.
We've now got three hashes in three weeks, after a three week gap. I'm hoping we get some good turnouts; numbers have been pretty healthy this year, although the last one was reduced to just nine. It certainly makes a hare feel that the effort is worth it when there are good numbers.
On, on!