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The Bourne Valley Bollox 41 |
| The Hash Trash of the Bourne Valley Hash House Harriers |
| Run 41 - The Lardi Cake Inn, Andover - Feb 1st 2000 - Attendance 32 - RA: Mudlark - Hares: Bandit & Clausthaller | |
| Our guest scribe talking a load of bollox this month is Torchkiller from Haunch of Venison H3 | |
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Gather around hashers - I’m going to tell you a fairy story. Make yourselves comfy by the fire. You may suck your thumbs or whatever else you fancy - just make sure it belongs to YOU and not to the person sitting next to you. |
| It was a wonderful February evening in the concrete depths of Orrible Andover, the drizzle drizzled, the sodium lights sizzled. We gathered outside the oddly named Lardi Cake Inn & as usual, we were a motley crowd. A few exposed themselves in shorts, obviously trying to impress. The more sensible wore woolly hats & windcheaters. Under the pool of orange light we definitely didn’t look too good, leading Parcel Force to offer to take blood samples back to her lab to test for H1V. Crusty sores on exposed areas are a sure sign, she informed us, but was too tactful to point to anyone in particular. |  |
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After a lot of hanging round waiting for the usual latecomers we had an impromptu regroup on the regroup in the car park. After that bit of excitement it was your typical hash. I can’t say it was all downhill because Andover isn’t. Downhill, that is. Or uphill, for that matter. But it definitely is urban. Or do I mean suburban? Lots of tarmac and factories and supermarkets and petrol stations and not (for a change) much shiggy. Parcel Force (again!) sang out "Night night" to a cluster of parked trucks as we ran past, to the total amazement of a passing stranger. To the rest of us her remark was totally normal, which leads me to wonder - are there more hashers than ordinary citizens in locked Wards? |
| As we galloped around town, terrifying the local gentry or animal life depending on your point of view, Blackthorn did her usual number. A hundred yards from the pub - she swears this time it was at least 150 - she disappeared with ANOTHER HASHER. This has become a regular occurrence. Summer or winter, whatever the hash, whenever the rest of us arrive back at the pub, exhausted & dying of thirst, these two are already there. Dressed in dry clothes, beers in hand & with totally innocent expressions they think they’ve fooled us. How wrong they are! How can they look so refreshed unless they’ve had some excercise too? 100 yards is hardly a workout. Unless they have been doing a different kind of stretching and limbering out of sight in some dark alley. |
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Two Hands was another one who vanished, altho’ to give her credit she ran much more of the trail. She was on assistant cashier duty back at the pub so her excuse was legit. I must say I thought it was a sensible decision. Who wouldn’t rather sit in a warm, cosy pub and help drop money into a jam jar than run through the rain with a bunch of braying, whistle-blowing idiots? I can’t see her ending up in a loony bin (oops! sorry! - I mean secure hospital) unless she changes her ways & degenerates like the rest of us degenerates. (Note: A degenerate acc. to the Oxford dictionary is: A person who has lost all qualities that are NORMAL and DESIRABLE). |
| P.C.Tackleberry spent most of the hash as an FRB, tearing along in the lead with her jacket buttoned and her hood up. No one would have recognised her, and that was what she wanted. The dark streets of Andover can be pretty dangerous for anybody, let alone an off-duty cop. What if she’d been mugged for her free buffet money? How would she ever live it down back at Police HQ? I thought she was worrying unnecessarily, & I would have told her so if she’d slowed down a bit. It would have to be a fast moving mugger to tackle Tackleberry and Andover doesn’t srike me as harbouring a top flight class of criminal. |  |
| It’s a funny thing being delegated (bullied into) scribe on a hash. You suddenly realise the world is full of snitches. Everybody and his uncle wants to tell tales. Trouble is, with soggy writing paper and a pen and a memory neither of which would work, it was impossible for me to note any juicy titbits. However I do remember one comment about a harriette (not me, natch, or I would have forgotten it). It was about Warbler - made by her nearest and dearest to somebody else who told me. Apparently she "goes down well, especially with strangers, but she can overdo it and take too much out of herself - It was considered to be a complement by the snitch who told me - no prizes for guessing who that person was. | |
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Regarding the hares, I must say it was my kind of run. More arrows than blobs, and lots of verbal directions en route. Portway hashers being gentlemen (so they say), it was more of the "This way, please." than "Piss off & find it yourself, you asshole." variety. We only got lost once when the warm glow of an open Safeway beamed at us through the rain, and lured us in the wrong direction. |
| Back at the On Inn,
after about a dozen down downs ( included a christening for 'Oily Minge' which started as 'Oily
Hinge') were awarded by the RA,
we were treated to a superb ‘free’ curry. In fact it was so good and plentiful
that several hashers (you know who you are) were seen going up for thirds never mind
seconds! To paraphrase the author P.G Wodehouse (an author is a person who writes books, and a book is ....oh forget it!) it is time to drivel to a close. Before the run Clepto announced "It’s a ladies hash tonight" or words to that effect, and I have struggled to obey him. |
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| The last words go to Mistress - "Lardi Cake, piece of cake" she announced as we set off. I couldn’t put it better myself. | |
| On On, Torchkiller | |