The Words
Next Run No: 1563
Date: 12th July 2010
Start: Pew Tor
On Down: The grass at Pew Tor - bring your own BBQ
Hares: Biff and Glani
Literate Limerick
It’s summer: the hash is in shorts.
For the trendies, new kit has been bought.
Ramraider’s is skin tight
We think it’s a real sight
For sore eyes, with his muscles so taut!
Imagine you are a responsible, diligent, TVH3 hare. It’s your turn to
lay the run. You select a gorgeous location, buy 27 bags of flour, placate
the potentially hostile landowners, muzzle fierce dogs, place sofa cushions
over barbed wire fences, buy the best beer at Waitrose and spend a day of
your precious holiday laying a superb trail. Everyone enjoys the run immensely.
The final accolade would be acclaim in the hashmag, which should record your
triumphs for all to read the following week. (Yes we know everyone has forgotten
it all by then, but that’s not the point.) And then what happens? There
is a mag, but this week of all weeks an egomaniac scribe is using it as a
platform for his/ her extreme views on everything from the state of morris
dancing to the ethics of the Large Hadron Collider. No mention of the run
- just a rant against dog poo in the Co–op and a manifesto for killing
anyone who wears beige.
So, dear reader, you can be assured that this week you will be treated to
a traditional hash mag enlivened by a few of the little refinements you come
to expect from your most pedantic reporter.
Hmmmm, easier said than done when I look at my notes from last Monday. Since
then I have been galloping up and down big hills with Pony and the trauma
ensuing from wearing the same pants for two days and living on jelly beans
has rather interfered with my memory….
Ah yes. The Plympton Tarts! That’s a nice thing about the hash. You
think you have got some hares sussed, right? Glani will choose a patch of
land as big as a postage stamp and make you run every which way across it
until every blade of grass is flattened. Arguilles will rarefy his run with
that Country House feel. Dogcatcher – enough said. Luffly – a
safe pair of hands round the mine workings etc etc. Plympton Tarts? Water,
water and more water, bogs, leeches, drains, aqueducts, rivers, with the run
rambling on and on miles from civilisation as the skies lour and the moor
broods. Cannonfodder and Russ Abbot appearing out of nowhere like demented
gnomes urging us on to greater efforts. Well, at the start, the poor loves
looked as deflated as an England football fan with a redundant vuvuzela.
The sun had been shining! The rain had not been raining! The Dartmoor drizzle
was dry! With heavy hearts they told us that this run would not be up to their
Usual Standard.
Shock horror – hashers came over all uncertain. Debacle was seen parking
his car with careful regard to other road users. Von Trapp had pinched the
wife’s roadster and tried to pull Luscious but now spoiled the effect
by winding the window down to chat her up forgetting that the car roof was
already down! Hotlips was annoyed; she had worn her skimpiest clothes thinking
that there would be lots of swimming and now the wet T shirt contest was off.
So the relief when we set on our way, to find the squidgy bits more or less
still there, was palpable. At the end there was even an opportunity for anyone
who likes swallowing copious amounts of peaty sludge enhanced with a dead
sheep or two to indulge their liking for whole body immersion. Bad Girl and
I looked on and sniggered. Bet most of them have no dry knicks, we crowed.
Thanks, Tarts; a lovely run, enhanced by the weather and the modest distance.
Back at the bucket I was watching the ‘Oh no I have
no towel what shall I use?’ dilemma unfolding. Hot Rocks found a brown
paper bag from his veggie stall a little lacking in absorbency but better
than nothing. Elvis’s owner shared his dog towel, Scrote rubbed himself
down with an oily bike rag and Barney Rubble was happy with a beer mat as
it more than covered his golden balls. By the way, the boys like the Mappa
Mundi T shirt as it is long enough to hide their modesty, especially when
they take their shorts off in front of a party of school children and church
leaders who are picnicking nearby. No one could beat the fragrant Swallow
however, who in spite of enduring a torrid 44 mile coastal run the day before,
floated by, a vision in a pink sundress. 9th lady too, congratulations! How
is it when I come back from similar events I am covered in scrapes, with black
toenails and hair that resembles a ‘before’ photograph on those
‘Old women can look 10 years younger’ programmes?
After the stick we gave Ramraider about his compression garment, he had decided
to give it another go with a shirt that looked like it had been made from
his granny’s curtains.
In the White Thorn there was some entertainment in the form of a Village People tribute act but I was too busy stuffing my face with Chicken Fajitas (spelt wrong?!) to care much. I do know that Greasy Rollocks, Hotlips and Scupper Sucker (spelt wrong?!) received their lovely tasteful 100 run awards. Oh and by the time you read this Pimp will be away on his holidays to Hawaii, hoping for a big swelling- or was it swell?
Last but not least – get well soon Grandpa, we miss you.
Red
Dress Run: A charity run usually staged at national and international
hash events. We will stage our own, on the 26th July. All bucket monies and
donations will be donated to St Luke’s Hospice; Pony and Luffly will
be doing the midnight walk on 31st July. Start looking now for that little
red number.
Train and Walk, August.
Barn Dance, September.
News
from your committee.
We had our budget last Tuesday and felt now was the time to increase our membership
fee to £10 from 1st August. Still
a bargain and no increase since 1989. Now we will have trophies for 25 and
50 runs.
Camping Weekend
When: 4th-6th September
Where: Portscatho, Roseland Peninsula
Format: As before. Coach on Saturday morning to take you away from the campsite.
Walk / run back to Portscatho. (6 – 18 miles) Fun and games in the pub
on Saturday night.
If it’s nice a beach day on the Sunday.