… with another splash of dithy-witter.

Saturday was Halloween – if you were busy trick and treating and butchering pumpkins, then you won’t need me to state the obvious. But here in Grenada, all that ghouls and ghosty milarky came with a slight twist – a Hash. Nothing to do with fried cowpats of smashed potato, but everything to do with scrabbling around a wooded hillside, clawing through brambles and vine, looking for the next forlorn little heap of shredded paper. And all this ‘fun’ in temperatures to make a thoroughly fried hash of the brain. Hashes are regular features here in Grenada – rambling walks (or runs) through the local countryside, following a pre- laid trail (complete with false detours) aimed at the doggedly masochistic and terminally insane. We were eminently qualified to participate then.

This hash was reputed to be one of the easier variety (oh how they lied!), and the reward for such a silly endeavour was the promise of hot grub and cold beer at Le Phare Bleu holiday resort. Le Phare is gorgeous – a lovely comfortable establishment right by the shore on the southern coast of Grenada. It has the added attraction that the Doc Adams Blues Band (whose talents I’ve already waxed lyrical about) regularly provide some hot foot-stompin’ jazz there. Among the cruising crowd, there is a strong Doc Adams Groupie contingent – and the band’s gigs are regularly packed to heaving. But whether it was the lure of the good Doc’s and his strummer’s and drummer’s great music, or the thrashing and crashing about in the woods that held such appeal, or even the strange desire to be-smear oneself with fake blood and apply lashings of black liner and wear a wig  – that drew the punters in their hundreds, we’ll never know.  But in their hundreds they were there.

Men

Women

Children

… and Dogs!

The Hash began about 4.30 pm after a general signing in (so that those who lost the plot … I mean way, might later be found by search party.  Ha! Very comforting, that.  So off we went, some in galloping, loose-limbed style (mainly teenage students from the local university); some in grim determined plod (the woollen speckly socks and hiking boots brigade); some with trepidation (those with good sense and a dislike of pain); and some with a stout stick, a leisurely pace and plenty of humour (veterans, obviously). These last, well seasoned in the perils and pleasures of hashing are deemed to be ‘Hounds’. Hash ‘Virgins’ are those like Dick and I who had yet to be initiated into this strange “mad dogs and Englishmen” pursuit.  By the end of things, I wasn’t entirely convinced losing one’s virginity to achieve hound status was quite all it was cracked up to be. In fact sense insisted it might have been better to have found a shady spot, kept my legs firmly crossed and sat it out with a cold soda.

But hey, there’s no fool like an old fool, and it must be said that between scrapes and slithers there was a perverse sort of pleasure to be gained from yomping through bracken and briar, skating around on treacherous scree, grabbing root, branch, stalk – the guy in front – anything in a bid to keep arse off forest floor, lacerated by thorns and decorated with mud and leaves as the hordes ahead and those behind demonically bellowed insistent commands of  “ON! ON!” (On, on? I couldn’t have gone back if I’d bloody tried – there was at least a hundred or several folk pressing close behind).

In fact had it not been for the heat and the slipperiness underfoot (crocs are NOT a hash-friendly shoe choice), I think I just might get the Hash habit big time if I recover after the last one sufficiently.  It’s certainly an intense way to get close to Mother Nature (although some might say uncomfortably close at times).

Anyway, in straggly, gallumphing style, we completed the course as daylight began to wane and there at the finishing line was the cool(-ish) sea and the bar of Phare Bleu to put a new urgency into weary feet and limbs.  Those that had taken a more leisurely approach or who had been waylaid by the false trails (oh such wags those trail organisers!)  continued to stumble back sometime later, their way lit by candles placed and lit along the path – a kind and thoughtful touch after the heartless treachery of being knowingly sent in the wrong direction.  But then, like I say, Hashing is a seriously screwy affair.

Screwy or not, it was strangely heart-warming to see all ages, of every shape and size, from silver tops to kids,  to babies and pet dogs, the fit and the unfit, all gathered together in thoroughly good-natured, dirty, dusty, dishevelled, sweaty harmony.

Later that night, the worst of the grub sluiced off in the sea, we tucked into a different sort of grub – the edible variety  – and then danced the night away.  The mood was absolutely top dollar. Must have been the endorphins after all that effort earlier.  Nobody wanted the music to stop and, as one, the crowd on the dance floor hollered for more – and then some more still. Clearly enjoying themselves as much as the rest of us, the obliging Doc and his gang played on … and on … and on.

Hash Virgins? Wot us? Not any more, we aint’. Hounds to the marrow, us Merediths!