Hash 1549

Good morning! Good morning! Good morning! How is everyone this fine morning, recovered from Tuesday's onslaught on the senses?  Have you all managed to come out of your darkened rooms into the cold light of reality? How is the therapy coming along? Does the word 'hashing' bring on a spasm of twitching and shaking, or an urge to burst into tears? Do you find your mind wondering, are you staring into space, the thousand yard stare? It helps with the inner turmoil, looking into the far distance is so, oh so, calming.

Can you look at a weather forecast - a stormy one - without quaking and muttering, "Dick's hash! Dick's hash!!"? Does the thought of the weekend run which you used to look forward to now reduce you to a quivering wreck? Does your therapist help, or do the sessions just relive the horror of the evening? Does your therapist adopt a sympathetic attitude, or more like, "you've only got yourself to blame, if you had only stayed at home..."?

Are you glad that you didn't man up, or woman up for that matter, grasp the nettle and hash, or are you smug in the knowledge that you were sensible and stayed home? Is the medication working, beginning to sooth your troubled soul, is the memory of the hills and the mud and the cold and the wind and the hail, slowly - ever so slowly - fading from your mind, have you stopped wringing your hands and pacing up and down? Have you started to smile yet, a proper smile, the smile of someone enjoying life, not the smile of someone slowly slipping into insanity? Does the sight of trainers bring on an urge to scream, or can you at last face the prospect of a run without a panic attack? Have you aged dramatically since last Tuesday's hash? Did you used to be calm and collected, but since Dick's hash your life is now edgy and stressful?

Tuesday is fast approaching again, but how can it be like last Tuesday? It's from Iver, where you will be safe, the weather has to be better and there are no hills. Dick Dastardly will have nothing to do with it, you will be alright...

One of the lighter moments was seeing Lawrence on his hands and knees trying to bring a dying fire back to life, getting to his feet with a black face, no eyebrows and a whiff of smoke rising from the top of his head - I feel a hash name is required here.

All in all then: What a brilliant night, made even more brilliant if you had stayed at home with your own fire which probably produced some heat.