Date: 17/8/2015
Location: Southport
Hare: Truck Tyres & Jigsaw
Runners: 27
Tonight’s run was a joint effort between Truck Tyres and Jigsaw and started from an obscure location called “Ward Park” and indicated as being in Nyora Street, Southport. Yours truly was the first to arrive, quickly followed by the booze masters and Sir Slabb and all of us wondering “is this where we’re supposed to be??”. Sure enough, cars then started streaming into the street as darkness descended upon us and we all wondered if the neighbours were going to be upset with all the noise that we would create as the night progressed. As the time drew nearer, poor Jigsaw started to stress as to the whereabouts of his co-hare, who had turned up at 4.00pm or so to mark the run, but forgetting the Hash Trailer back at his house in Burleigh Waters!! Oops, slight oversight there Truckie!! Back he went to get it, only to then inform Jigsaw by text that there would be no trailer as some coupling or other had been sheared off!! Oh dear, a real debacle in the making but more on that one later.
The Run:
At 6.30 or thereabouts, with no Truckie anywhere to be seen, it was left to the remaining hare, Jigsaw to see us all off… “head up that way I think…and be careful, because he’s set it through a school, despite having been warned off the place this afternoon when he was out marking the run, you might get shot at when you try and go through it!”. Off we all headed, runners and walkers, straight up a pretty hefty incline, meaning that we hadn’t warmed up at all and yours truly did something to his leg which necessitated aborting the run fairly early on and going with the walkers. Before that happened, Hot Dick was heard to say “you know, this isn’t bad for the middle of Southport” as we traipsed through virgin bushland.
The run did have a good variety of street and bush, particularly given that we were in the middle of suburbia and the bit of the walk that I did was also quite acceptable…some of us commenting “these are nice streets”…and Circumference observing “yes, this is how it all was in the 70’s”, lamenting the transformation of the Gold Coast to a place where everybody now puts up wanky McMansions.
The Nosh:
Back to base we all came and as we had no trailer and no chairs, this was going to be an entirely “stand up” event. Thank goodness for Weekly’s ute, which served many purposes tonight, including luggage storage, booze table, kitchen prep area and servery, not to mention being the only bloody thing to lean on in the whole park!! Oh, and the dog shit…Weekly had managed to step into the biggest, smelliest dog turd in the whole park (it’s an off the leash dog walking park) and the whole area around his ute smelled disgusting for ages!!.
Yours truly then observed “hey, it’s now starting to rain!” only to be informed by a fellow Hasher “that’s not rain, it’s bat’s piss…they’re all nesting above us!”…great site selection Jigsaw!! When asked to explain he said “well I looked it up on Google maps, we’ve never been here before and it looked good to me…there’s supposed to be a toilet block (there wasn’t) and all sorts of amenities (there weren’t)”. Oh well, we were all here, amongst good company, with good beer and half-decent wine to be had…who cares about the smell of dog turds and the bat piss raining down on us!
Poor old Jigsaw was starting to fret about the fact that there was no trailer, meaning no facilities for heating up the mains…oh dear…and the non-existent amenities meant no bbq to use instead. This was going to be interesting….but in the face of adversity, Jigsaw managed to pull it off wonderfully!!……….
First course was some absolutely lovely dips…olive tepanade, basil pesto and beetroot…gotta give it to Jigsaw…he does bonza dips!! Yours truly nearly missed out on the vegetable pakoras that were snuck out when I wasn’t looking…they were brilliant!…with a coriander and mushroom dip to top them off…..by now we were all thinking “hey, this isn’t too bad at all you know, and who gives a toss if we have to stand up!”
….hmmm…by now it’s 7.30 and still no Truckie!
By now Jigsaw has resigned himself to the fact that a debacle is unfolding before his very eyes but he needn’t have worried. All of a sudden there appears the most colourful bowl of salad with capsicums, olives and all manner of goodies piled on and a bag of green leaf lettuce into which Jigsaw then pours copious amounts of Balsamic vinegar dressing with added Sherry and shakes it all about to mix it..voila!!! a perfect salad is made. Next a pot of chicken, chorizo, chickpeas, Fetta and olives appears! The masses all line up and all is good!! But wait there’s more, and it ain’t steak knives….some nice slice to tempt our palates, along with fruit salad that most of us drowned in a custard sauce very heavily laden with Brandy…. “don’t let that go near an open flame!!” . To quote Now Loved.. “does it get any better than this???” Considering the obstacles he faced, Jigsaw excelled at the food and Truckie’s run-setting wasn’t all that shabby either! A good effort guys…a debacle averted by the skin of its teeth!!
The Circle:
The GM commenced proceedings by calling the hares out to the front and pointing out that they had very generously hosted tonight at short notice, being stand-in hares…so despite all the piss-takes, particularly at Truckie’s expense, this is not to be forgotten. Thank guys and a well deserved down-down. When asked if anybody could say something kind about the run, Iceman blurted out… “It was lovely..just lovely, I enjoyed the extra few kilometres, I really did!”…you sick bastard!!
Miscarriage commented “the markings were too far apart…in fact, overall it was very poorly marked!”. The walkers were asked for their summation of the walk to which Now-Loved gleefully responded.. “it was great..we had a live hare (Jigsaw)…and we rarely get such a fine group of sportsmen (the runners) weaving in and out!” due to the fact that the run crossed the walk several times…very clever markings Truckie, or did we just meander aimlessly on the walk and happen to keep bumping into the runners???
Sir Prince Valiant commented “Jigsaw was so relaxed…he’s to be congratulated on the contingency plan and the use of the ‘virtual trailer’!!”….and whilst SPV had our undivided attention, he recounted that after last week’s run, there he was lying in bed when he thought he’d let go of a “little zephyr of wind” when all of a sudden the dog across the road started barking and the Princess had long since left the room in disgust…onya SPV!!!!….and all praise to Sir Rabbit’s soup last week for having the desired effect on at least one of us!
Next item of circle business…would all Hashmen please watch that they put in booze money for what they drink…an audit reveals there is some degree of minor discrepancy between the drinks gone and the drinks paid for.
On to RA business and needless to say out the front came Flasher (yawn, yawn, yet again!)…this time he cops a down-down for falsely accusing Josephine of fucking up the run last week….it was all due to the idiotic idea of the Wednesday hash to go out and mark their trail overlapping ours on Monday afternoon! Who in their right mind marks a Wednesday trail on a Monday and especially knowing that we run on a Monday night and they might just be our markings out there??? Bent Banana also got a Down-Down for false accusations of a similar nature.
Sir Rabbit copped a down-down for last week’s soup (bloody lovely it was, all five courses of it!)…the charge should have been for thinking that six bananas was enough sweets for thirty blokes!!
Croc (welcome back old son!) copped a down-down for nearly being killed by the plane that came down over the Coombabah Wetlands while he was out on a bike ride!
Sir Slab called to front and centre and presented with a handkerchief by the RA…to remind him of how bloody vicious these things can be when they get tangled in the rear derailleur of a $7000 carbon fibre bicycle…from frame to shame in one easy lesson! The down-down was dual purpose…good on you for forgetting Freddie’s sleeping bag on the Simpson’s Desert tour!! Gift to the GM from Sir Slab…a bottle of beer that has been to all four corners of the continent by the sounds of it…and survived!
Down-Downs also for the birthday boys…happy birthday GM and Sir Slab!!!
The Useless Shirt made it’s way from its normal bearer to….Now Loved for bailing out of the Hash Relay Team with a useless excuse…comment by Weekly.. “what’s fucking useless, you or the shirt?”
Prick of the Week…from RockHard to Flasher…for thinking RH’s Hash bag was a bin bag into which beer bottles ought to be deposited!! Sir Rabbit adjudicated this dubious reason and determined that it was good enough…and on this point whatever happened to our yard glass for POW down-downs??????????????
Several other issues were raised but they won’t be mentioned and they pale into insignificance compared to the disturbing news that Caustic and KB are not here tonight because they are having a meeting to plan a splinter Hash for the southern end of the Gold Coast!!! This is truly disturbing news gents!!!
That’s it for now guys….oh, and your trusty scribe is in Melbourne next week so Moonbeams has graciously offered to do the words.
On On
Fanny Charmer…On-Sec