Social Whirl

Aside

It takes a lot to get me out of a winter’s evening but when I got an e-mail from Alan, the only male member of our ex writer’s group, suggesting we meet up for dinner I was tempted. We had finally dwindled down to four – three gels and Alan – and although we all got too busy to meet regularly we enjoyed each other’s company and had kept in touch.

Full marks to Alan; he managed to organise it all and choose an evening that suited all and we arranged to meet in The Valiant Soldier in a village reasonably close to the gel’s separate villages. I was to be collected by Alan at 6.30 pm and we would meet the gels at 7pm in the pub. Alan is a very busy man with four teenagers and a demanding job so it was no surprise that he had the arrangements half an hour later in his head and this gave me time to eat two chocolate biscuits (they’re special and I need to get them out of the house) and a chocolate cherry liqueur which reminded me to take some c.c.ls for after the meal.

We usually see some wild life on Alan’s forays down the country lanes and had a fox dart across our bows. The pub was bedecked with Yule tide stuff and there were the obligatory roaring fires. There seems to be a lot of electric blue lights this year in our neck of the woods, which has never struck me as particularly Christmassy. The tree in the pub had masses of coloured, tiny lights which flashed on and off regularly and then worked themselves into a frenzy of blinks which I thought should probably – in these days of health and safety fascism- have carried a health warning.

It was great to catch up and we chatted seamlessly until the waitress came. It was pleasantly quiet with just a huddle of men at the far end and another dining couple. You had to choose what to eat from blackboards on the walls and I dithered between venison bourbignon and lamb noisette. After a discussion with the waitress I plumped for venison. Sadly this was ‘off’ so I had lamb, Alan and Di had duck and Anne had pork. The two ducks looked as if you put them together they would make a whole and my lamb was succulent with a lovely fruity sauce.

After that none of us felt really hungry but anyway demolished two lemon meringues and two apple crumbles with ice cream. After coffee we were astonished to find it was nearly 11pm and planned to have another – in the summer – somewhere where we could sit in the garden by a river, MTL was going to have an early night but was waiting up for me when I got home. Its not often I’m out on the razzle these days.