Ha, what does Huggy know ? He had an attack of CBA last night because the old boy thought the marquee would be damp.
In fact it was damp and also cold, unless, that is, you were the person who had remembered to pack something warm to wear
I left home into a heavy shower so took the decision to go for a direct route (it turned out I was not alone in that). I arrived early to hear the thunderous timbre of Joergen's Teeside tones explaining to the gaggle of locals that he was their stripper for the evening - deeply suppressed and painful memories of his Epiphany dinner "male stripper at a cyclist's hen night" ensemble bubbled to the surface but luckily he was just in his normal, if slightly luminous, clobber.
We were soon joined by Oaky, Michiel de Ruyter and a select Witham peloton of the Hustler and Hotblack. A little later Bear Grylls turned up fresh from riding the Capstan Full Strength No.1 event across various bits of Nordic wilderness and full of tales of deadly critters and derring do. His latest book "Survive like a Viking - how to forage in the 24 hour garages of Scandinavia" is sure to be another huge bestseller and I, for one, shall waste no time in reading it.
With Beer Festival Rules* in application, we found ourselves forming a queue behind Joergen as he painstakingly went through the entire list of ales with the barman (who was slowly losing the will to live) asking about condition, availability and location. Having done so, he then produced a range of highlighter pens and a ruler and proceeded to colour code and mark each ale with a variety of symbols before finally ordering himself a half of Lancer. The rest of us, meanwhile, were starting to worry about closing time and eyeing up our bidons wondering if perhaps water might not be so bad after all. When we eventually reached the bar, we managed to sample; Bishop Nick's Heresy, Crouch Vale's Brewers Gold, Goffs' Lancer, Daleside's Leg Cutter, Courtyard's IPA and their Golden and Maldon's Panta.
Naturally with the full Quaffers' Committee and its office junior all present, we completely forgot to convene our judging panel so, on a unilateral basis, the Quaffers' Choice Award goes to Daleside's Leg Cutter.
We conversed in a number of European languages and suggested various new adventures for Bear while the rain hammered onto the roof of the marquee.
Fortunately by the time it came to leave, the rain had all but stopped and it was a relatively mild ride home for February. We should be in short sleeves and sandals not 27 layers like Michiel.
Next week Joergen is promising a far flung adventure - Colchester has even been mentioned
* We get a number of enquiries here at MEMWNs HQ about these Rules so I thought it would be helpful if I set them out in full:
1.1(a) There is no table service as it is the Hustler's night off.
