A Quack and Honk for a Wet Night
The odds are pretty slim at best, almost like winning Lotto, but it had to come about in the POSH, didn’t it? In fact the odds are statistically 4,010 to 1, and if one throws in a wet soggy night for the deal, then the odds increase to 8,100 to 1 that this would occur.
So now you are wondering what I’m talking about, ….Right?
At last we have two hashmen, whose names originate from the farmyard, setting a run together …..in the pouring rain. Is this a first? Both names are from the fowl (foul sic?) menagerie. Now I won’t hold you in suspenders for any longer: First we have DUCKweave………………………….. and next we have “Bruce the GOOSE” . Who ALWAYS lives up to his name………
“So What’s the difference” I hear you ask?
Well your childhood experience should quickly answer that for you. But in short they are: –
Duck = Quack = amphibious = friendly = large eggs for brekkie = feeding bread to in ponds = waddles when it walks = quacks too much = stick its bum in the air when feeding in water = crispy deep fried from Chinese takeaways.
Goose = Honk = amphibious = noisy = very territorial = even larger eggs for brekkie = getting things wrong = hissing and bad temper = total verbosity at hash events = Good for Dickensian roast Christmas dinners.
Thus you will see that our resident Duck & Goose combo were the perfect poultry pair (or paltry pear?) for Monday’s wet weather for which they were biologically engineered. “Fine weather for the Ducks” as the saying goes.
And it’s no coincidence that both have their pens close to each other? So they must come from the same Lower North Shore Farm.
With the gloomy wet forecast I rang Mr Duck on the Sunday before the run asking him what contingencies they had prepared. He quacked a reply to say that they had two plans: Plan A for ordinary soggy wet weather for Ducks and Plan B for torrential wet weather for Ducks & Geese. He and Mr Goose were the only ones with webbed feet, waterproof feathers and amphibious so it made “no differwence to uz”.
But he knew “wet wevver make it difficult for youse uvver mammals in the hash”. Especially he quacked, “like Salty Peter who iz all pwick n’ wibs, n’ so gets wet ‘n’ cold all easy”.
Plan B was in case of a total washout run, with umbrella hand outs, a shorter trail under awnings and through tunnels and railway viaducts. And knowing the increasingly ginger ways of our ageing hashmen, it’s no surprise that in the wet and cold of winter the numbers reduce dramatically. But Hey……its still a run and the omens were for good easy territory to get to because it’s on the lower north shore. It’s almost the epicenter for so many hashmen.
Now when I mentioned that the pack might be well warmed with the curried Bombay Duck, our very own Duck-Weave squawked “Ohhhh ….Howh can youse kill and eat my cuntwy couzins?”
And with that Mr Goose honked loudly, just like a klaxon from Hanoi Bill’s favourite vintage car, then hissed like an old steam engine and hollered “And what about me bruvers and sisters from the family gaggle…all basted in masala sauce and served up with popadoms and chillies? HONK HONK!!
Well if they were that concerned they best to choose a Hindu Vegetarian restaurant…although that might go down like a lead balloon with the hash.
And thus the run commenced under the heavy splatter of rain with Plan A…….not that it made a lot of difference. And with duck puddles a plenty, and without a full armor of amphibious plumage it was a certainty to be a Full Monty soaking night…wet nipples etc. In these soaking Duck and Geese conditions our “Pwick n’.‘ Wibs” TM essentially provided a live hare run. Linger a little longer at the back and the arrows would soon wash out, so like the Pied Piper he led the pack on a long loop north and north eastwards through and around the Royal North Shore Hospital (without stopping off to visit Milton), up to Artarmon, north of the Gore Hill Expressway, past The Wogaby (Willoughby) sports centre, and finally zigzagged back home to Zig Zag Lane where it all started in the under ground car park. There the pack flapped their wings to shake off the droplets (and lakes) of water whilst drenching their insides from the bucket. Actually it wasn’t that cold, so the wet didn’t really make their nipples stand up and beg for attention. Thank God for small mercies.
But the bucket was a shortish event as the promise of Bombay Duck and Masala Goose was foremost on most hashmen’s minds by this time. And 32 or so piled into the waiting restaurant, with the tucker being dished out by a sweet young Bollywoood wannabe dancing waitress. Maybe she wasn’t quite the beauty show that most would have hankered for, but she had breasts like Bombay Mangoes, and that kept the level of interest high and their eyesight keen.
Long suffering wives, brides and mistresses of the restaurant revelers had to endure the fumes of flatulence from their partners late into Monday night and Tuesday morning. I guess there’s a price to pay for everything; even a sumptuous curry dinner …right?.
Talking of which Goonshow, freshly returned from old Blightey, his beloved Pommieland, was clearly suffering from eyeball whiplash with the dusky waitress and also relished real cosmopolitan food after a surfeit of Ploughman’s lunches and warm beer. Welcome back too Druid who had also been doing it tough inhaling tear gas in Taksim Square (Istanbul) and then sailing through the Greek Islands to clear his throat. Still, he looked good for the experience. Even Polish Joke turned up. Now that’s a turn up for the books…or maybe he was there to validate some of his annual subs.
All up the Duck and the Goose managed to pull off a successful night under the wettest of conditions and reward the pack with a heart warming Bollywood meal.
And at the end of the evening the Duck and the Goose travelled in opposite directions to their separate pens for the night on the Lower North Shore Farm.
Your Hash Journo