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 HASH MAG ARCHIVE 1995: RUN NO.615 Run Date: 7 August 1995 Lame Excuses At Eastontown It's been a long time since I last ran with Drake - but as he died in 1596 that's really not too surprising. It is unlikely that I would have been at this week's hash had it not been for a surprise phone call from Dishy & Mole to tell me how much I'd been missed, what a marvellous, warm, generous, considerate, caring person I was, how they'd love to see me again and how about us all going out for a walk together on Sunday? And so it was that I found myself on the moor being dragged uphill and down dale, over streams and through bogs with two hundredweight of sawdust strapped to my back. After all that I was bloody-well sure I was going to do the trail on Monday! On arriving at Eastontown I was reminded that the traditional hash greeting takes the form of insults followed by an exchange of excuses. From this I learnt that; Begorrah. shouldn't be running due to a gammy leg, IAT shouldn't be running due to a gammy leg, Deadly shouldn't be running due to a gammy leg. In fact, Deadly wasn't running at all. It seems that age has finally caught up with The Old Queen, and, being unable to obtain a motorised Zimmer-frame, he somehow had got hold of a prototype of the new generation of electric wheelchairs. This marvellous invention is so streamlined it resembles a mountain bike. Deadly even tried to convince us it was a mountain bike, but no-one was fooled by that story - not with him having the battery strapped to his head. Yakkidah strolled up to me and we exchanged greetings, and so I found out that she shouldn't be running because of (and here I was expecting ' THE GAMMY LEG' to raise its ugly head again) chicken and potato. Oh well, she is Oirish! The on was called up onto the hillside and in and out of the bracken. Axel, a visitor from Austria, had helped to lay the trail. He was so proud of his handiwork that he insisted on the runners locating every blob of sawdust. Apparently he was very impressed with the compact scale of the Dartmoor terrain which is so different from the Austrian Alps. It is a little known fact that until 1990 Dartmoor was higher than the Alps, but then its height had to be reduced in order to comply with an European Community directive designed to reduce the European Mountain mountain. I greeted Snakehips and discovered that he shouldn't be running as he had already been out for a two hour run earlier in the day and was now feeling knackered. He certainly inspired sympathy as he hurdled gorse bushes, leapt streams and sprinted up hills. You could say that he had exhaustion written all over him, but at the speed he was travelling it was hard to tell what was written on his tee-shirt. The sawdust led us near to Pew Tor, Heckwood Tor and Vixen Tor. Dishy & Mole had set the run in such a way so that there were no check-backs but the correct trail was difficult to find and required a good deal of searching. This had the desired effect of keeping the hash together, apart from FFerret, but everyone knew he was over the hill (and has been for years). Perhaps he should be renamed 'The Lone Ranger' as he always seems to be disappearing into the sunset - either that or I had a fly stuck to my spectacles. I greeted Sub and was informed that he shouldn't be running as he had been feeling extremely tired of late. He now runs with a heart monitor strapped to his chest. This is a useful piece of equipment which lets you know whether or not your heart is beating. It has only recently been available to the general public but during this short time it has cleared up much of the confusion which used to occur whereby living people would think that they were dead and vice versa. On several occasions a dog was spotted which was a dog that was spotted, and the spotted dog was a dalmatian. Unfortunately, this dog had a disagreement with Whimpers Algie because spotted dogs make him go dotty. After Vixen Tor there was a long/short split which ensured that the hash was together at the base of Barn Hill. From here the trail took us to Moortown and Pew Tor rocks. Five minutes from the end of the hash we were joined by Rover who had arrived late and had set off on his own to find the sawdust. He had spent most of his time running towards a group of people on the horizon, only to discover that they were moving far too quickly for the hash. It was only then that he realised that he had been following a group of walkers. After much effort Rover eventually caught up with us at the final long/short split which gave everyone a good downhill ran back to the cars. The trail had succeeded very well and what with the perfect weather conditions made for a very enjoyable run. Well done Dishy, Mole & Axel! The on down was at the Walkhampton Inn where the landlady is an ex-hasher. Perhaps this is just as well, because when the hares arrived at the pub on Sunday evening after laying the trail ,they began a detailed conversation about sheep ticks. As it is never enough to just talk about sheep ticks, they started examining themselves for signs of the pesky insects. This earned them some very funny looks from the other customers and quickly ensured that they had the end of the bar to themselves. Despite all of this we were given a warm welcome on Monday with not an insect spray in sight. As I greeted Tirikerbell in the bar, she told me that she shouldn't be running as she is concentrating on training for the world mountain bike championships at Newnham Park, near Plymouth. It seems she has got a novel approach to this competition; as she doesn't want all this training to go to waste she has written to the race organisers asking them to send out her results before the race, then she can decide whether it is worth entering the competition. The Beast's editorial skills were much in evidence in the hash mag he had provided for our cultural stimulation. His policy was to omit the boring extraneous details that so often get in the way of a good story. Consequently, the 'next week's run location' part of the mag was ditched to make way for an in depth expose of what Granny Hill did (or didn't do) on her holidays in Devon. Unfortunately, the choice of subject matter was not universally popular, as it was pointed out that it is bad enough when Deadly is in the hash mag, without having to read about other old women as well. Not Norman and FFerret could be seen engaged in furtive conversation in a quiet corner. The topic of their discussion was wild oats and how to sow them. There was a good deal of speculation about when Ferret last did any planting, but it's in all the history books that the date of the the last Norman conquest was 1066. Sitting together at the other side of the room were Martin and Twice-A-Week. I hadn't met either of them before but they seemed very pleasant, so it is a bit of a mystery why they are with Drake. They seem to have got friendly very quickly - they were overheard making arrangements to do some canoedling over the weekend. This isn't the sort of thing that normally happens at Drake, but then Twice-A-Week used to run with Tamar Valley H3, so allowances have to be made for her. It was decided, that Martin should be given the hash name 'Woodentop' because of his spotty dog (The Woodentops were a BBC childrens' TV programme back in the early days of television, in which a spotty dog featured strongly. I know all this because an old lady told me. Thanks Dishy!). It was good to see Whimpers, who is on holiday, enjoying his evening with the hash. He has to make the most of his runs with Drake for he is unable to hash in London. He spoke about how much he misses Devon and how he is hoping to return here as soon as possible. As our conversation progressed, Whimpers waxed lyrical about the dramatic beauty of the coast, the grandure of the moors, and the warmth and humour of the simple Devon folk. As he was speaking a far away look came into his eyes, and when I turned to go he grasped my arm, and in a voice choked with emotion, asked if he could tell me something he had not told anyone before. I nodded. "Well" he said, the words being wrenched from the very depths of his being, "I shouldn't be running, I've got a gammy leg!".
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