Author: Selina

This event was held 2 weeks ago and 18 of us gathered either to spectate or to perform. Amongst other items we enjoyed singing in Italian, piano music by Chopin, Lloyd Webber and Paul Simon; clarinet music by Gershwin  as well as poetry and readings in Swedish, French, Dutch, English and Spanish. In our hallway we even made room for a demonstration of Flamenco dancing. During the lengthy  interval we had a good variety of European cheeses with bread and crackers accompanied by different wines and soft drinks for the drivers.  A very good and varied evening of culture.

The evening started with the Selkirk grace and was promptly followed by Nicola’s tasty cock-a-leekie soup. The haggis was brought steaming from the bain marie and I quite dramatically addressed it with Burns’ famous ode. Malt whisky was served for the toast. Lots of other lovely accompanying dishes were brought to share.

We were able to do this on the actual date of 5th November. We had a fantastic display of loud and beautiful fireworks, which was followed by Champagne to celebrate a 60th birthday and delicious, autumn dishes brought to share.

In the delightful setting of The Ship at Owslebury, we played for a couple of hours and avoided the rain that was forecast. The “terrain” was booked for 2 hours and in that time two of the teams remained unbeaten but we didn’t have time to play an extra round to decide which team was the overall winner. Selina and Wilma to play Paul and Guy next year!

The sun blessed us with a whole afternoon of warmth and we were able to enjoy a range of delicious, typically English foods as provided by the 16 participants in Sue’s sheltered west-facing garden. Mini toads in holes, pork pies, cheese and onion pie, raspberry trifle and many other lovely dishes were consumed with great pleasure. Most made an effort to come dressed in red or white and we even had a stunning damsel in distress, complete with flowing locks.

Back in February a group of us got together at Mark’s where we enjoyed some delicious pancakes, courtesy of Mark, and Johann supplied crisp, light Belgian waffles. Geoffrey was his usual flash self with the flambe pancakes and all  enjoyed the evening.