Hash 1053

To everyone’s surprise the pack assembled on a balmy January early except for two miscreants and chatted in the car park with tales of derring do about the past week. Gerry regaled us with his recent underground tunnel stories of Vietnam and Mick with his impending holiday plans starting at sparrows the next morning.

The omens were good. The pub was apparently ready to receive us in the back room after the run and unlike the last visit to the hostelry there was no ice on the ground. What could go wrong?

However, trouble was brewing not far away, - at the very first check, in fact.  Audrey’s maternal instincts were the cause. Ryan was late, where was he? Had anybody seen him?

Now Dear Reader, I consider myself to be fairly well educated and to possess a reasonable command of the English language. 

I have even been told that on occasions I have the ability to understand the meaning of two simple, yet similar words, namely, “ON ON”.

But, to be fair and reasonable to my fellow hashers, - I have to concede that Anno Domini is perhaps setting in, (it should be after the last birthday!), and that a cocktail of both Senile Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease is hovering on the horizon.

Furthermore, perhaps it had escaped my notice during my absence before Christmas that the Hash rules had changed, or perhaps, some secret code had emerged and utilised recently.

So, - you can probably imagine my surprise to hear from the back of the pack that Aud was “hanging back”.

Is that a new hashing term? Has her lovely posterior slipped? Has she developed a new 45 degree leaning astern running style? Has she pranged her car on the way to the pub and was waiting for the AA?

After a considerable amount of pondering it was agreed that the assembled mass should assume that after a million hashes under her belt she knew the rules and was merely missing her son Ryan and the Pocket Rocket.

It was reasonable to assume that even Ryan would not run like a maniac across the beautiful Buckinghamshire countryside screaming “Mother, where are you”?  So, - your scribe urged her to forget him and to “get a wiggle on“ (another hashing term), especially as on the short leg there was no flour or even something something similar to a white substance on the ground.

Now, your scribe has to admit that he was somewhat miffed to find that after the Short/Long Regroup, there was another 10 miles of shark and salt water crocodile infested parts of Queensland to run through before getting back to the pub. 
Still, I thought, there was a fellow who managed to walk on water some 2,000 years ago, so why couldn’t we?

(It was a bit of a giveaway Phil, following the line of flour across the flood plain from your leaking flour bag earlier).

Being somewhat diligent, your Trash writer - whilst attempting to enjoy our splendid and unique form of Tuesday evening recreation by jogging through some of the more beautiful parts of England’s green and pleasant land, even remembered that he was writing the Trash and that a few anecdotes about the encounters of the Longs would be appreciated and perhaps be appropriate.

After getting the low down from no less than four of the Longs in the pub, the gist of their combined amnesia ridden recollections is as follows:-

“It was sodden and muddy”,  
“We went near the M4”, (that indeed was one hell of a long run, Whipping Boy!),  
“Someone said something about someone”, - and – 
“I can’t remember much, - other than we got back to the pub. 

GREAT.

The arrival of the chips, (thank you Phil), received lots of “Oo’s and Aa’hs” from everyone, - but the complete lack of beer save for the 6 bottles of bitter the barman was “saving for his mates tomorrow”, got the venue the lowest of the low rating.

Finally,
1). Jane got her 150th run ‘T’ shirt, 
2). Aud found her long lost son who had passed his driving test that same day, and -
3). Benchbreaker pointed out the error of the barman’s ways after the evening’s proceedings en route to his car, as only he can. 
(Suffice it to say, it was in a similar vein to the invective meted out to our erstwhile hasher “Howard the Flour Eraser”, - some 3 years ago.

Good hash Phil, thanks and well done.