Aha - as first in, I get to put in the preliminary report.
Firstly, we completely failed in OD's vision of "more miles, fewer pubs".
Even with my ride back from Chelmsford, my mileage for the night was 22.5, pub-count was 3.
We did have, though, two new attendees (although boab has been to a EFNRTTB, so she's almost "not new" to the MEMWNS).
chief, boab and I met up at Chelmsford station, and set off, by the more "road-like" of chief's route options, towards Broads Green, via the Pig and Whistle (especially chosen for boab). He even took us through the posh bit of Chelmsford, which I think was called "Melbourne", or possibly "Washington".
Once we had dodged our way through the Bentleys, Aston Martins and ladies trotting out on ponies, we emerged into the countryside, and very quickly needed a drink. fortunately this coincided with the P&W, so we were sorted. It was here that boab provided us with the choice quote of the evening. (although there were others, my mind can only hold 1, or at best 2, quotes of this quality").
From hereon in, I suggest we use an adaptation of it as our "challenge-response" password when meeting up at railway stations (see below).
From the P&W we moved on to the Walnut Tree, a "Ridleys" (i.e. Greene King) pub with very interesting and "proper-pub" layout, and a clientele that largely cycles there - there were a couple of old-ish Raleigh 531 frames outside when we arrived, both equipped with front low-rider-mounts along with two other bikes. Whilst we were sat outside having our first drink, a local youngster cycled past on what looked like a Raleigh 20, too.
We hooked up with bloomers100 there (who didn't know the pass-phrase, but I guess that's understandable since it only just came into existence a few minutes before!).
A few pints (or bacardis/j2os as per preference) were had, then we moved on to the Rose and Crown in Gt Watham.
boab and I safely negotiated the Gt Waltham junction, which had a frankly very scary road sign, but wasn't too difficult to get across safely.
I bade farewell to boab at Chelmsford station at around 20 to 12, well before "pumpkin time" (this time NXEA were, inexplicably, running trains) and set off home, with the directions I'd asked for to get to the Boreham road, via Springfield rd, ringing in my ears. unfortunately I ended up hopelessly wrong -- instead of turning left onto Springfield Rd at the traffic lights after passing the Riverside Inn, I turned right (I blame autopilot - that's the way I usually go when driving).
That, however, involved rather more of the (3 lane dual carriageway) A138 than I'd intended to see on a bike. It's quite worrying at the slip-road bits - quite hard to decide where to be in the road. I did a lot of loooking over the shoulder on that stretch.
However, eventually, I reached the Boreham road and arrived home after
Lovely night - great to see chief and boab again and fantastic to meet bloomers100 for the first time. Hope we haven't put you off too much!
[[1]] Should go something like the following
1. "My clearing is unfenced."
2. <fill in "spy" response here: e.g. "the russian bear does not eat cornflakes">
OR
1. Challenge: "How's your clearing?"
2. Response "Unfenced"