And that’s just one of some unusually corny Santa jokes which a large gathering of members and their spouses enjoyed whilst having their annual Christmas lunch at The Pheasant. After an excellent meal which included a choice of Loch Fyne scallops, prawn cocktail or tomato soup as a first course, followed by turkey, venison or sea bass as a main course, and lemon posset or Christmas pud for dessert, all washed down with some fine wines and beers, it was hardly surprising that by the time the speeches were made some could have been excused for nodding off.
Maurice thanked everyone for coming and said what a good year the club had had, with several new members taking an active part in the rides and whose company was very enjoyable. He said we had once again raised over £1,000 for charity, ably assisted by Sandra who generously donated some money that Maurice had paid her for catching rabbits in his garden. Maurice then showed a cheque for £1,000 that he would be sending to Macmillan Nurses for the work they do in caring for the terminally ill in particular.
Moley Martin then took to the stage and after firstly thanking Maurice and Andrew for all their hard work in organising the rides he welcomed John Tarrington, whose wrist had recovered well from his fall in Norfolk, and hoped we would see him out with us again soon.
He then proposed a toast to absent friends, including Linda Warner who was recovering from a recent operation and Kell Ryan who had been taken seriously ill whilst on holiday in the Bahamas. John and Lynn Bagrie were also missed but were hopefully having a good time on the ski slopes. Vernon was awarded the Recovery Prize for an astonishingly quick return to fitness after a serious operation in early 2015.
Moley thanked his deputy bloggers Brian, Andrew and Sandra and then proceeded to give some interesting facts and figures about the year’s rides – 56 rides to date (possibly some others not blogged), 1,701 miles ridden, average of 30.56 miles per ride, 26 members took part at one time or another and the best attendees were Maurice and Andrew. The 2016 Puncture Champion was thought to be Brian.
Members also took part in other rides during the year, clocking up a total of over 2,000 miles in the case of Andrew. These included Vernon riding a tandem for Camsight with a partially sighted co-rider, Tom and Brian riding 80 miles in the Tour of Cambridgeshire for charity with 8,000 other riders and Andrew, Maurice and Martin riding 184 miles in Scotland with Andrew’s friend Don, during which the infamous yellow carpet story was referred to again, complete with a colour photograph. Finally, Moley circulated a selection of the 200+ photographs that appear on the 2016 blog, printed copies of which would be available for purchase early in 2017.
Andrew, smartly dressed in his Scottish trews, then thanked all members present and others who could not be there for their support over the year. He also handed out momentos to Maurice and Moley of red stained pieces of yellow Axminster carpet together with packs of carpet stain remover as a reminder of the yellow carpet incident in Scotland.
Finally, Maurice thanked Ollie and Simon for their hospitality and support over the year and presented Ollie with a large bouquet of flowers.
This was not quite the end of the Windmill Club’s year as more rides were planned before Christmas and perhaps afterwards to trim off excess calories, but it served as a focal point for members and their spouses on what the Windmill Club is all about – good company, good conversation, having a laugh, keeping fit and, of course, good food and beer.
And just in case your Christmas cracker jokes do not come up to the mark, here are a few more corny ones:
What do you call a frozen elf hanging from the ceiling?
An elfcicle!
What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
Frostbite!
What carol is heard in the desert?
O camel ye faithful!
Happy Christmas from the blog team!
The Windmill Cycle Club 