A new year and a new Captain, and what a start he made. With 8 of us riding in awful conditions the Captain made sure that he kept the boys motivated. With a familiar push up through the middle of the woods and then some fast singletrack, the Skipper decided to warm up the boys by taking us for a quick sherry at the Maenllwyd! What an inspired decision as one soon led to another. There weren’t any complaints from the “Magnificent Sherry 8” apart from Dickie, who was griping about the fact that the sherry was making his gastric problems flare up! Crock was revelling in the unexpected tipple and was hankering after a third, but not one for excesses the Captain was leading us out of the door and on to the second part of the ride.

As we trooped out we were all glad that we had taken our jackets off inside, otherwise we wouldn’t have felt the benefit as we now embraced the winter chill for a second time. The newly crowned “Sherry 8” which consisted of The Captain, Bernaard, Dickie, Marty, Tom, Harty, Crock and I soon got in to the swing of things, with a nice warm feeling in our stomachs and a feeling of heartburn for Dickie, we felt as if we could take on the world, well Rudry woods at least!! With a mucky singletrack section and a short sharp climb we were soon on Ridgeway looking down at the twinkling lights of our capital city sprawled out beneath us. But before we could truly behold this sight before us the Captain was driving us on relentlessly like a man possessed as if in pursuit of the last woman on earth, and proceeded to brush away bracken and fern which had succumbed to the winter harshness months before, but even if it had been in its summer prime, it wouldn’t have been a match for the Captain and his unrelenting surge down the uncompromising trails toward Lisvane.

This is where things quickly changed though, whether it be the effects of the sherry wearing off or the fact that the Captain had over exerted himself and become tired, his riding and leadership suddenly took no direction at all. He was finding it difficult to navigate the trails and at one stage even pulled the cable out of his light, in order to have a rest, whilst telling everyone else that it had just fallen out, but I was in prime position being held up just over his shoulder and watched him as he deftly sabotaged parts of his bike in order to be able to take the occasional ‘breather’. As the news filtered back through the pack that the Captain was struggling (something which never happened to last years Captain) and his futile attempts to hide his tiredness became increasingly embarrassing, it was time for drastic action, with Tom and Crock taking the lead they courageously navigated us to the warm surrounds of the Hollybush Inn.

Once safely encamped at the “Bush” it was sherry’s all round, with the Captain literally having to be spoon fed his in order to get some life back in to him, but no sooner had a drop or two moistened his lips, he was back to his old self. It was at this point that we noticed the Christmas tree was still erected, with the fairy notable by her absence leaving the tree looking somewhat bare at the top. It was a good thing that Dez wasn’t with us last night, as there were a lot of other shiny things for the ‘magpie’ to pinch including a bald man sat in the corner and a few milk bottle tops scattered around outside.

With the Captain suitably re-fuelled and everyone else warmed to the core, it was away again, with a quick 1.5 mile dash back to HQ. Once entering HQ we stumbled upon a riveting conversation between Cunny, Quim, Dez and a bloke called Dremmel (because he is “The Ultimate Tool”) and after listening to a few ‘stone age’ mumbles and grunts, Cunny managed to tear herself away from this conversational master class, to serve us a wonderful chilli that she had spent all afternoon preparing. We were soon settled in our usual corner when we were joined by Ryan the Steam, who had been brewing tea well into the evening, and with remnants of Marie and Nice biscuits still obvious around his lips he proceeded to join us at the table, although I think he would have fitted in more comfortably if he had joined the ‘University Challenge’ table, because uncharacteristically for him he was very quiet and didn’t utter a word until finishing his sole beer and announcing that he was leaving for home to research his new book “Tea’s of The World and Biscuits to accompany Them” whilst enjoying a few cans of cider!

No sooner had The Steam left, but ‘former’ member The Gallon arrived, who had just missed witnessing Dickie experiencing an electric shock. One of the lads had asked him to turn on a table lamp and instead of looking to see if a bulb was present, he just put his fingers straight on the live terminals, it was noted that it was the fastest we’ve seen him move since he joined the Miggly Moos!! With the Gallon taking up his usual place by the bar we settled down to enjoy the rest of the evening. It was somewhat strange to see Owgie collecting the subs instead of Scrippsy but very intelligently he was drinking a bottle of Pills, so that we couldn’t indulge in our favourite pastime of last year whereby the Captain would end up with 40 odd quid in his pint glass!! I was however a bit disturbed by something the New Captain had mentioned on the quiet. Although he has already come up with some commendable new ideas, one I think is not worth consideration, as he mentioned to me that he fancied making Scrippsy “financial secretary” so that he doesn’t have to collect the money himself, not only is this disgraceful talk by the New Captain, but he is also trying to baulk on one of the core tasks that being Captain entails, I think we should “nip this in the bud” straight away and throw out this proposal at the next meeting!!!!

HQ is once again going to be closed from Monday, so on behalf of the Moos I would like to thank Cunny and Quim for everything they have done for us over the past 4 months, and to wish them the best for the future. Also there are rumours that the Gallon will be joining us next week on the Cheese and Wine run, and that Chrissie will be making an appearance now that Cunny is no longer on the scene!!!!