A bright and sunny welcome greeted the hares and later the hashers and walkers on Friday 26th January. Spring has come before Winter this year! As we stood to watch the mists swirling around the mountains in the distance (you could tell this was a beauty spot by the trash lying around all the best view points), we were reminded - by White Trashed - that this was the birthday of the great Scottish poet, Rabbi Burns. At least yesterday was his birthday. In honour of this great occasion hares White Trashed and WTB had initially decided to call this hash the "Highland Games". However, after laying the trail a better name came to mind - the "Rome" hash. As you all know Rome was built on seven hills and by the end of the trail it felt like we had run up all of them! (to those hashers who took us literally and counted - shame on you...)
Wise Pranker had tried to calm the hares' natural instincts to lay a long hard trail by limiting us to only 2 bottles of paint (and blaming Rafi, who claims he was in Brazil at the time). We reckoned that he was economising by giving us what was left over from his last two runs. That plan backfired since it just meant we left longer gaps between blobs and still set a long trail (which someone measured at 4.5 miles). In keeping with the "highland games" spirit, the hares also decided to go for a record of the greatest number of false trails (all of them marked of course). There were loads - shame we forgot to count.
We had barely any time to sunbathe/recover from laying the trail when the troop of assorted miscreants that made up the runners and walkers showed up. No rest for the wicked hares, but to give the runners a taste of what we had just been through, we started with a massive uphill climb (White Trashed does have a reputation to live up to after all)...... which turned out to be a false trail. After that, it was plain sailing (though why anyone would want to bring a boat to an inland hash I do not know). The trail wound its way uphill, then uphill, then uphill, uphill again, down a bit, up a bit more, then up one final hill before the On In. Those who had run the initial falsie found themselves on familiar ground at the end since the real trail (marked by a stone arrow since by then we had run out of paint) led the same way but in reverse. Setting the final 200 metres downhill was a transparent ploy by the hares to avoid a down down by getting everyone to finish the run on a happy note. It didn't work. Most of the trail was on decent paths on which the only hazard was rabbit poo, though we were visited briefly by the local Hells Angels on their motorbikes - the main hazard from that was air pollution, however.
In keeping with the theme of the hash (no, not Rabbi Burns, torture!) White Trashed regaled the runners at each Hold Check (renamed Rabbi checks for the occasion) with some of his poetry. So great was the runners' appreciation that the readings got shorter and shorter with each check. A request for simultaneous translation into English was turned down. Apparently there were 4 hold checks, though several of the runners claimed it seemed more like 40! Unfortunately your scribe cannot remember the exact poems used. However, after great research I have uncovered part of an unfinished poem by the great poet himself, which I will reprint here. It begins as follows: "There was a young girl from the Cities, who was blessed with a huge pair of..." unfortunately the old parchment is too faded beyond this point. I guess we'll never know what the great poet was thinking about when he wrote this masterpiece.
Anyway, enough culture and to the Circle. The Hares received their just desserts, followed by virgins Gert from Denmark, Norman from the US and David from somewhere. I can't remember much else about them part from the fact that their average shoe size works out at about 9 and a half. Paul's attempt to shorten the hash was duly rewarded. We were plagued by short-cutters on this hash. Rather than punish everyone the worst offenders were singled out: Karen, Julian and Ryan. Ryan's attempt to wriggle out of it by claiming he had a Vietnam flashback and thought he was rescuing a lost patrol of hashers fooled nobody. There were even short cutters in the walkers this week (how can that be?). Manhal and Mervat claimed to be following Marmoun's instructions, which was almost as feeble an excuse as Ryan's. Julian got another down down for whingeing - he was later heard to complain vociferously about that. Norman got one for new shoes, though the decision was not unanimous and we may need to go back to the action replay to confirm at a later judiciary hearing.
In a special naming ceremony Marmoun received his hash name. Owing to his well known habit of setting fire to anything he can lay his hands on (so his wife tells us) his hash name is "Pyromaniac".
On on
WTB
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