This is the sort of stuff I SHOULD be writing…Many thanks to Amnesia for stepping up and wresting the reins of scribe power from me. The only thing I have to add is that as I approached Amnesia, Wrist Action and Mouthful, Wristie was explaining to Amnesia how she had just grabbed the first thing “long and large” that she could find (I guess Mouthful must come by his name honestly).
So without further introduction here’s the Amnesia version of events:
I am always wary of attending the Oxford hash; not that they are not a fine bunch but they seem to be a little quicker than I can manage these days and do tend to like a bit of road running, but as they were holding a Gispert Birthday Hash, I felt it was probably my duty to go. In any case hashers such as Wha De Say and Shagger attend regularly so I assumed they did have some provisions for slow old farts.
Having paid the £3 to park then have to walk the distance of a normal Bicester trail to get to the pub, all did not auger well, but when the landlord told me he had lager, Guinness or cider only, but the real ale would be on later; (is that later this evening or this year I wondered), I realised it may be a night to remember. The hash, sitting in the lager and cider garden, greeted me with their usual cynicism, but I sensed a touch of extra jollity in the their mood. It was only later when I realised Gadget had not arrived that I understood the reason!!
The hares, Webfart and Warm and Fluffy (Warm and Fluffy being one person not two)called the pack together for the Oxford customary briefing, normally long enough, in normal circumstances, for anyone to get another pint in, and we learnt in detail how difficult the trail was likely to be. Not that it needed an explanation as the husband and wife team immediately had a domestic as Webfart, sensing the repercussions, relinquished all responsibility, and allowed his beloved to take the blame. Now that, one may think, would be the normal action of any reasonably experienced male hasher, which Webfart is, but the fact that there was no caveat, allowing him to claim credit should the pack hail the trail as one of the greatest, was a bit of a worry. More concern arose when W&F decided to stand there silent, watching her GPS on her wrist until she acquired the right satellites before she could call the on.
Well off we went with rumours of 10 clicks in our ears. (10 clicks to me is calling our cat 3 and a third times but I went along with it!) . Actually I went along with it for not very long as when we got to the check (in fact the first check), there was a choice between hashing on the green and tree lined South Parks or the wheelie bin lines back streets of Cowley Road. Those immortal words from the Oxford H3 web site sprung to mind! “We hash in the towns and smog during the winter months, and out in the glorious Oxfordshire countryside during the summer.” Off into the park I went along with Dr Slow Ride. How wrong we were! The last I saw of any hasher after that was DSR disappearing over the park horizon at a great rate of knots, but as discovered soon after, in completely the wrong direction. My lifesaving kit of £5 in my back pocket bought me a proper pint in the Port Mahan before I walked the 200m to the beer stop (about 47 clicks I think) and awaited and awaited the return of the hardy. Upon their eventual return, hot sweaty, exhausted and complaining, we were served an excellent chilly before the down downs were started and quickly and rudely interrupted by natives with big sticks, ranting on about kids being asleep upstairs. Skid Marks would have been proud of them! Abandoning the down downs we decamped to the Angel and Lettuce or whatever the Oranges and Lemons is called now. I can never understand changing a perfectly good name of a pub to a crap one. ‘Angels and Lettuce say the bells of St Clements’ Click, click,click!!!
OnOn
Amnesia
