Well fellow hashers, what is to say of recent events? I shall leave the discussion about the future of the Hash to another space, and will just say here how happy I am to be back, despite the unusual circumstances in our group, and that there was a hash run this Sunday … and for all the absent, you missed a wonderful one !

The pack (humbly composed by six hashers, hares Pavel and Nurjan included) met in front of Dublin pub, which will remain our meeting point until further notice. To avoid the worst nightmare ever for a Hash (= no beer!) a case had been bought by the acting hash cash and hash hops, and despite major recrimination at first, one case turned out to be more than enough for the day.

The hash was set in the hills turning right from the road that leads to Alma Arassan, unfortunately the cars dropped us near the final circle … Little did we know that we had to walk sort of uphill more than one kilometer before even getting to the starting circle ! This, you can imagine, translated into a down-down later for the hares. Anxiousness rose when we realized that we would be starting the hash already tired, but then the top of the hill wasn not so far away, and we had plenty of time to rest while meandering in the grass trying to find the first marks. This is a feature that applies to the whole trail: whenever you got too tired, you could catch your breath again while pretending to be admiring the landscape, which was easy because it was breathtakingly gorgeous!

A few pictures were taken by the acting hash flash, but being an old-fashion type of photographer, you will have to wait until I finish the roll, develop it, and scan it before you can see them on the internet, so please be patient!

Three checkpoints were perfect as a tutorial for virgin Samal, who despite her non-athletic-at-all shoes kept walking and searching for marks, never losing her smile. We must admit that some of the marks were almost invisible, due to rain -- claim the hares, but also due to not enough flour. Then again, had the Hash ever made us feel like detectives? There is always a first time.

The pack, despite the little number of hashers, and the fact that they were all walkers, managed to be separated in the end, which forced Ainash and Aida to commit the sin of using their cell phones on the trail… and made the acting RA wonder: is picking apples on the trail equivalent to shopping? Because that was yet another feature of this trail, the proximity of orchards, apple-trees just waiting to be freed from some of the weight they were carrying, as hare Pavel had noticed and prepared for. What was that bump in his shorts, I wondered at first? Is he so happy that all the hashers were girls? Turns out it was just a bag to carry the apples. Oh well.

Hare Nurjan ended as a FRB, but for a good cause: going to pick up the beer and the pots to have the circle ready for us. We discovered that in the heat of last weeks’ events, no-one had thought of washing the pots (yikes!) so down-downs were administered straight from the bottle. (Relax; piss-pots have been duly washed this time!)

Just what a hash is supposed to be: long, hard, and so fulfilling! On On!

PS: wondering about the title of this account? apple=alma in Kazakh, so that the city’s name could be translated as ‘the father of apples’

REMINDER:

We meet at 5, and will start leaving at 5:15. There will be no more waiting for latecomers, you have been officially warned!

When setting the Hash, two trails are needed, and the runners’ trail needs to be longer than the walkers’, and at least two kilos of flour are needed (I usually buy three to be on the safe side)

To avoid any misunderstanding: the Hash does not pay for food or extra beer after the run, except on very special occasions. Sometimes a generous hasher hosts an On-In at his or her place, but otherwise it is the hares’ responsibility to find a nice and affordable café where we can have shashlik, for instance, maybe negotiating a discount for the group. But every hasher pays for his or her own food and drink, not the Hash.