Thursday 7 July 2011

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Albeit a day prematurely, we assembled last sunday for a fourth of July hash, set by Mrs Slocombe and me in the rural surrounds of Mosteiró and Vilar, near Modivas. There was a fair smattering of red, white and blue, with Hard Drive sporting a stars and stripes bikini top, which he managed amply to fill, almost to the envy of some of the female hashers. Quiz answers were provided at fifteen checkpoints but the questions were held until trhe end - the winner was, perhaps inevitably, one of the Americans, Nancy. Flasher, having in out-of-character fashion necked a beer upon finishing, was demonstrating why all around her steer her away from such wanton behaviour, teetering about and demanding that Nancy be 'discarded' - presumably on grounds of nationality.

The hash itself was of decent length, about sixteen kilometres without checking, and the running was strong and consistently maintained. We decided to forego the planned pit stop lest the momentum be lost through Superbock and stiffening legs and it finished at around two hours ten/fifteen. The ground was good for running although there was relatively little road work. We started through a cornfield freshly sprayed with muck and coninued through a mixture of fields, woods and back lanes, dusty, ripe with silage and with a stream to cool the feet with thrown in for good measure. On three occassions we crossed the previous hash, but as the only hashers other than me to have done that one were Hard Drive, Spanker, Droopy and Tongue Fu, there was little chance of anyone noticing, even though we used the earlier signs at one point.

Down-downs saw Spanker mark her 210th hash, two virgins - Greer and Aude - make their bow, and a few other misdemenours marked before a few went off to the American Community barbie at the OBS.

Now Spanker and I are away for a few weeks, but hopefully things will continue in the meantime. Until August ... on, on!