H3Brunei: RUN NO. 2285 MENTERI LINK 5JUN2012

RUN NO. 2285
DATE: 5 JUN 2012
SITE: MENTERI LINK
HARES: GI JANE/HOTLIPS

The Tale of the great Mentiri water pipes run and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee (QDJ) Shout Up

GI Jane and Hot Lips outdid themselves setting this week’s hash trail. Well done ladies. We are much obliged. What a lush bit of jungle it was too. Too bad it was nearly all uphill, eh? Or so it seemed. It was a cracker! Simply sublime in terms of vegetative cover, couldn’t get enough of the place. With four checks, they kept us on our toes, or shall I say more correctly, the three clever lasses who found the paper on each occasion (well done Boel for finding the first check, Yann for finding number two (a sneaky back check it was too) and Carol who found checks three and four, you clever girl!). I found myself wondering whether the Queen might have found a check had she been alongside us. She’s one cracking lass you know, so I wouldn’t put it past her. In fact, I wouldn’t put anything past her, she is one right top lass. Fertile Myrtle found the dog lead Cheryl asked us to watch out for, right at the top of the last hill before we exited the jungle and after a dozen gals strode right past it. Isn’t it funny how sometimes others see things you can’t? I say it’s her highly honed ‘mom radar’ that shone through, what with those four boys to keep her on her toes and in a perpetual state of high alert. We’re gonna miss ya gal.

Alas, before you knew it, everyone was roadside signing back in and gulping back H20 and 100in anticipation of the evening’s festivities just up the road at Karen’s place because tonight was the big night to pay homage to Her Royal Majesty, the Queen of England, that’s right, Elizabeth II who has been on that throne now for 60 years. Congratulations yourRoyal Highness and many happy returns of the day to you! Imagine that, putting up with Phillip for, er I mean overseeing her queendom all those years (don’t go getting all PC now Deb, alright I won’t just, I’ll stop it right now).That reminds me, once when speaking on British food, the Prince remarked, “British food is something like a small child. When it’s good it’s very, very good; when it’s bad, it’s absolutely awful”.Positively smashing SOH on that chap, just smashing, oh and we’ll be having loads of the former and none of the latter food-wise tonight as you will soon see. Though with news just in, we all wish the Prince well as he is in hospital, poor chap, well not poor exactly, but you know what I mean. Gee, English can be a rather tricky language at times, as we found out a bit later on the night in the A-Z quiz, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Anyhoosers, there we were fresh out of the jungle and in just minutes we were down the road for the big shebang shout up at Hot Lip’s place (thank you hostess with the moistest!) and being greeted with a lurvely cocktail and all too.It went straight to our heads so we staggered to our chairs (proudly bearing our posh goody bags filled with nice prezzies, thanks Amanda and all you other lovely gals involved in providing that treat) and sought a good view of that table full of yummy scrumpdillyiciousfood that so many nice ladies worked tirelessly to prepare for our grateful tummies. Yum-yum and another yum, and another rum or was it gin, or I forget, is someone getting sozzled already, they just gots here and already Bettina is Kathryn? – oh dear!%$#!. Sober up darlin’, right, now where was I? Oh yeah, it was hard to concentrate once we were called to order, what with all that food right behind the speakers, and all those sparkly outfits.

There sure were some glam outfits on the night. Bling galore too, some of us were positively blinded by the bling. It was hard to believe any of these gals had just been hashing a mere few minutes beforehand. Jan was truly royal in red, Nicky so regal in blue and Clare in the sparkliest patriotic number of all. Simply gorgeous ladies. There were more tiaras than you could shake a stick at too, it were one posh do alright.

The dress competition is certainly hotting up at these themed shout ups or haven’t you noticed?Brilliant to behold.Oh and there was marvelous classy British music playing in the background and we could enjoy the wonderful themed decorations including fancy napkins and a near life size portrait of the Queen surrounded by Union Jacks (though technically they are only called Union Jacks when flown aboard ships – yes ma’am).

So there was the lovely Amanda handing out the keepsake white FCO tote bags with a right jolly big UK flag on them complements of Sunny and the British High Comm (thanks so much!), with such nice goodies inside including a red, white and blue lollipop and a fancy schmancyboxed mug commemorating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Cool logo on it and all. Just terrific.Thank you, thank you, thank you to all you generous and kindhearted ladies who donated to the kitty to have those made. We shall enjoy those for many moons to come and toast to your good health each time, we promise. Bottoms up.

There were prizes and more prizes too. Those lucky gals who won were thrilled beyond measure. Eastern Promise, who also looked ab fab on the night, hit pay dirt by winning a Hello magazine. It couldn’t have gone to anyone more ecstatic. Some lucky ducks got a second QDJ mug. There was even a clever A-Z quiz from Smurf who managed to drag out of us the most obscure royal connections for each letter going. We learned what a dorgi (a cross between a corgi and dachshund, a special breed created only by the Queen) and a zaza (herfavourite daily tipple). Things started to get a bit funny when ‘Y’ was for“Yorkshire pudding”?! I’m not sure how much Yorkshire Pudding her Majesty ingests each year, but I’ll bet it’s not a lot what with all that swan on her plate and all. Why that Y word I wondered, why indeed. Oh and we had to move swiftly along at F, because some gals only know one word that begins with the letter ‘F’ and they sure seem to like to shout it out a lot, like at the top of their lungs. (What would the neighbours think?) Then there was C for Charles, but no one said Camilla, which was only right and proper since this was the Queen’s nightanyhoosers. Oh, a zaza is made of Dubonnet and gin (which was created to ward off malaria for French Foreign Legionnaires in N. Africa – you read it here first) and a favourite of her mum’s and Queen Victoria’s as well apparently, who knew?). Well done all around for all the brilliant A-Z terms called out on the night. What clever lot of lasses to be sure.

There weren’t too many announcement, but Sunny reminded all Brits of the Street Party (picnic/garden party) taking place on the 16^th at the High Comm’s residence in Kota Batu for which one needs to send an expression of interest to the email address on the FCO website (and have it acknowledged presumably) to attend. So maybe it will be round two, or even three, there in terms of the QDJ for some of the ladies. Then Carolyn invited everyone round to hers for lunch on Friday the 15^th at midday. Lovely, much obliged.

After the fun prize draw and quiz were over it was time to tuck I and jolly fine fest it was too. There were gourmet salads, fingers sandwiches, mini homemade quiches, coronation chicken,little sausages, liver pate (as reported by the carnivores anyhoosers, not this veggie) and water crackers, homemade scones with jam and cream, tasty trifle and Delia’s whisky cake (ok, so I took some liberties with the recipe and trebled the amount of liquid ingredients called for – oops!). It was all terribly British, or shall I say, incredibly tasty, delectably fine fare, it was more than that, it was very, very good indeed. Positively delectable. Rah-ther! So GI Jane, Hotlips, Amanda, Smurf, Sunny and all the rest of you lot in the UK

posse,thank you ever so much for all your terrific organisational skills, all your hard work, being all around wonderful gals and for the absolutely S-P-L-E-N-D-I-D (read with a posh British accent please) evening that washad by all that was definitely fit for a queen. We’ll all get to run off some of those extra calories at the next hash which is at Tungku Beach. Be there or don’t be a beach babe. Later dudettes.

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