Mercy Mission to Tchybelenda

NEWS has reached us that the Dalesfolk of Weardale are in a quandary. Has the Cheese Club disappeared? Has it disbanded? Did it ever. exist? Nothing has been heard for months. And so on. Well, rest assured we are back and with a strange tale to tell. We intended to take a Spring holiday with the good people of Tchyebelenda, exchanging items of historical culture (we present them with a bag of hard cement) and sampling their very fine cabbage vodka when tragic news changed our plans. As you know we are the sole distributors for the famous Tchyebelenda goats' cheese, now made locally at a secret location using the milk of the Tchyebelenda goat. We now have a small goatherd, and also a small herd of goats to ensure continual production. All was well but then we received a call from the Mayor of Tchyebelenda. It would seem that the entire production of their renowned national product (the cheese) could be lost forever due to the sudden death of the only remaining Billy goat in the country, which would lead to the herd becoming extinct, with disastrous consequences for the economy. Could we help? Could we save his country from disaster on an unparalled scale? Rapid action was required. Our holiday plans were now changed. We were now on a humanitarian mission. We had in our possession a small container of Tchyebelenda goat sperm, kept in one of our member’s freezer in case the same problem arose (don"'t ask how we got it). It had to be delivered. Our logistics division set off to organise the transport, with a budget of one hundred pounds. They came back with a 1973 Bedford ice cream van and fifteen pounds change. After borrowing an M.O.T. certificate a tow bar was fitted and a small caravan attached for sleeping quarters. We now had a convoy. With the convoy ready to roll, we canvassed the local businesses for sponsorship and, while we were grateful for the ten gallons of red diesel, the seven pork pies and the map we really think you could have done better. However I digress and time being of the essence we started out on our journey. After two days and three punctures we arrived at Dover. No Eurostar for us. We lifted the convoy onto an old tramp steamer, captained by an old tramp and steamed off for Calais. As soon as our wheels touched French soil, the Cheese Club convoy started out on its arduous journey towards the Urals. After many hours driving we found ourselves on the Franco-Italian border. Which was a disappointment as we had been heading for Denmark, but unfortunately the map was upside down. Not to be discouraged, we decided to 'tak the low road' and go through the Balkans. There were a number of adventures along the way including a short spell in a Yugoslavian jail after an electrical fault meant the ice cream van's chimes sounded continuously for 230 kilometres. We were dismayed to find that the local police force's sirens did sound remarkably like our van's version of 'This Little Piggy'. We could hardly believe that some scruffy men in a white van with a jar of goat semen could reasonably be mistaken to law enforcement officers, but then none of us had been to Yugoslavia before. . An interesting piece of trivia is that animal sperm is not liable to Bulgarian import duty. Which is a useful thing to know if you want to stop a conversation dead in its tracks. All these delays meant that our mercy mission didn't arrive in Tchyebelenda until a week over schedule. We were welcomed with customary hospitality and it was wonderful to eat good, hot food. Well, it was certainly hot. We'd been living off stale cornets and monkey's blood since Croatia and so even Russian cooking tasted good to us. One Cheese Club member suffered from hallucinations after gorging on hundreds-and-thousands when the monkey's blood ran out Our goat's DNA was carefully taken off to the Tchyebelenda Institute of Technology and once it had been tasted by the director it was all hands to the turkey-baster and nanny goats watch your backs ! The people of this small Russian republic are poor but very generous and in recognition of the heroic lengths to which the WCC had gone they made a handsome donation of £1,500 to the club's chosen charity, the Retired Dairymen and Milkmaids' Benevolent Association. Our job done, we filled up with supplies and retraced our steps back across Europe. It is great to know that our Russian cousins can now continue their honourable cheese-making tradition thanks to the resourcefulness of Dalesfolk. . By the way, Gunther, the Billy goat whose donation made everything possible, is now wearing a lovely brass bell given as thanks from the Tchyebelendans. Which is great for catching him in the dark - all you have to do is whistle and then make a dive for his bell end ! Gordon Zola (WCC Emissary).