Our Chairman, Jeremy Dart, raises a toast at the Halzephron Christmas Social

Christmas Social event

The road down to Gunwalloe is a long and winding one, and can sometimes be rather boring, but at this time of year it springs a few surprises. For a tiny village, it surpasses several larger ones in its efforts to bring the Christmas spirit to all who venture there. As we descended into the valley on the night of 2 December, headed for the Halzephron Inn, we were greeted by lit up Father Christmases, cards, sleighs, robins, candles and other Christmasobilia, their sparkle bringing an instant smile to our faces. Well, to mine anyway. I am not sure about any Scrooges who followed!

This evening was the Christmas social occasion of Friends of The Lizard, located for a change, not at the Top House, which had served us well for several years, but at the Halzephron Inn, run by two relatively new members, Angela Thomas and John Mills. Our thanks to them.

As usual, the gathering was small but elite. We go for quality, if not quantity! Some of the members who had wanted to be present were prevented for one reason or another, but about 20 of us sat down to a very presentable buffet – if that is not a contradiction in terms. Well, we helped ourselves from the plates of superb food, buffet style, and then sat at the tables laid for us.

The only drawback to this style of eating is that one cannot circulate, but I did not notice any complaints. At our table the conversation flowed as fast as the wine, and the laughter came, if not in gales, certainly with a strong breeze. I don’t believe we discussed anything of importance, although one member was heard to expound on his favourite topic of politics, in spite of his wife aiming screwed up serviettes at his head. He was silenced at last. No-one mentioned religion, and the closest we got to the third banned topic was a fleeting mention of necrophilia. No, I don’t remember why, it is just something that comes up every so often, as it were.

Other subjects, closer to our hearts, were Franco-phobia, spam (the other inedible kind, enduced by e mail; if anyone is interested in cut-price viagra, just log on to any web site and the spam will hit your screen in days), the enrolment of a child at primary school (is ten months too young?), saturnalia (OK, so that is religion, but not as we know it), ostrich meat, venison, crocodile meat (at which point the vegetarians among us all made an exit to the loo), cheese-making farmers, cheeseparing funding agencies, bed and breakfast and, finally, a motion that our Vice-Chairman be made dictator. Well, you could do worse.

Oh and there was some discussion as to whether we should rename Friends of The Lizard, since the “friends” part is too evocative of sandals and placards. More on this later, no doubt.

I don’t know if you feel better for knowing what we talked about, but I really cannot think of what else to tell you, except the proverbial message that if you don’t attend Friends of The Lizard social events you are missing a very good gathering. However, as there is no available evidence that any of our members actually read this Newsletter (apart from my syntax being questioned once), it probably doesn’t matter too much.

And as I am not going to put my name to this, it won’t matter at all.

I hope you all had a Happy Christmas, and may you have the very best of New Years in 2004.

Anon.