Tanglefoot's Nash Hash
August Bank Holiday 1999, Aberfoyle, Scotland
"An Eightsome Reel"
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Arriving at various times on Friday afternoon, our IOW eightsome were suitably impressed by the green, sunlit amphitheatre and surrounding slopes of Achray Forest that is the Dounans Centre, Aberfoyle. Even more impressed by the vast marquee that was awash with beer of many beers and hues, our intrepid 8 set to sampling and socialising with Hash Friends old and new. Afternoon merged into evening and time to reel onto the dance floor with the increasing throng before reeling off to a well-earned crash.
Saturday dawned hot and sunny. Off to the showers (which remarkably stayed hot all weekend) and breakfast (all meals excellent in quality and quantity, served with great efficiency). Collect a packed lunch and head for the coaches (a 10min yomp through the woods) and select your run. Deposited on a rocky peak, the awful truth dawned - Scottish Miles (Like Island Roads) are Different!! "Of medium length ... in scenic forest...mainly downhill" turned into eight and a half miles of dizzying descent, with alternate vertical climbs through dense forest with the added hazard of the weekend's prevalent predator - not the expected mosquito, but a particularly vicious strain of wasp, whose attentions left one unfortunate requiring hospital treatment. On reaching loch level, an obligatory deep river crossing completed a "nice wee run".
Saturday night's booze and bopping had taken it's toll by the time it came to choosing Sunday's run. Our, by now, canny eightsome opted for the medium length, level run with short-cut possibilities". What they got, in deteriorating weather conditions, was bog, bog and more bog - interspersed with long stretches of water over very slippery rocks. At the beer stop, the heavens opened and the run was completed in lashing rain. All was not lost as, by now, the steaming coach load was deposited at Glengoyne Distillery for free malts all round instead of wet downdowns in a wet car park!
Sunday evening - cabaret time (Hampshire man and Big Bollox stole the show with Duelling Banjos), Blues Brothers and Men in Macks striptease so excited Hairspray she fell off GBH's supporting shoulders. Our 8-some were beginning to show signs of wear and tear! Miss Whiplash had bum-ache from a fall in the forest, FiveBar severe gash in leg and Tanglefoot sporting a very fat lip trying to downdown a wasp in her pint - consequently our sole representative on Monday's Hangover Run was Godot, a Braveheart lookalike in his "See You Jimmy" tam. He and Boots returned from the run looking very smug having short-cut all the difficult bits!
The Highland (Hashland) Games were more a gross infringement of Human Rights with abuse by flour, shiggy, beer, rubber gloves and welly boots!
Final downdowns and Auld Lang Syne had everyone blubbing in what remained of the Beer. Well done Glasgow and the rest - the Scots certainly know how to throw a party!!!