Birthday Party
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The weekend started off with a St George's dinner at the Golf Club, Brampton. In previous years we used the pre-party night to celebrate Burns night, but this year Robbie took a back seat while we celebrated St George and England.
Saturday night's Birthday Party theme was Coral an Carnation. Now that's OK for the boys, we just put a button hole in our DJs and off we go, but if ladies were looking to find a piece of Coral that was a lot more difficult and most opted for a carnation. Nevertheless the overall effect was impressive and local flower shops did a good trade.
It was a beautiful sunny day on Saturday, but the big worry for everybody this year was the flooding of the car park. We've seen the river banks breached before, but never this high, another 2 foot or so and it would have been up to the hotel's walls, perhaps that's why it's called The Dolphin Hotel. Anyway, we all managed to squeeze in to the available parking spaces by triple blocking everyone, very few of us had to move to let non-residents out.
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I had different worries having forgotten my dress shirt and I had to go shopping instead of pubing at lunchtime, but most other people managed to down a few pints and some food at the Golden Lion in Market Hill which is basically the high street in St. Ives. They do serve very large portions there, even the humble burger is massive and comes with side salad and chips - just what you want if you are trying to leave space for the evening dinner.
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As usual, the ticket price and raffle cover the price of beer and wine for the whole evening, I seem to remember Speckled Hen and Adnams being available, plus red or white according to taste. The meal was excellent as always, three course silver service, but the best fun is all the toys that Malcolm Fountain provides for us, flying balloons, toy trumpets, hooters, pea shooters and so on, how do the staff put up with us, and the noise!
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After dinner comes the official entertainment. We started as usual with Plus 5 who played for about three quarters of an hour and got everyone up dancing, but no Crackers or Knacker this year, everybody was taking a break. Plus 5 turned out to be the five core members plus Jim on Trumpet of course, Caitlin singing and playing guitar on Sometimes We Cry, just Helen on vocal backing, unfortunately Jackie couldn't make it, and last but not least, Judith making her debut on saxophone. The main evening's entertainment is provided by the Dolphin's own disco, the Five Star Roadshow which is very good and keeps us awake until midnight.
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Part way through the disco, presentations are made to those who have worked hard for the club during the year, the Woodsford Memorial Trophy was awarded to Unsung Heroine Joyce Smith for her stirling work organising the PCT but the Imbiber's Trophy was not earned by anybody! we were all too well behaved and sober, not like CranMog of old. Two of our ladies, Sarah Lightfoot and Michele Chapman sold raffle tickets all evening which helped swell the beer kitty. Raffle prizes are bags of bottles which we have brought with us specifically for the raffle. The draw for 13 prizes was ably conducted in the lounge by Laurie Povey.
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We have now started a tradition to go to John and Sandra Barry's house in Brampton on the Sunday morning. Sandra kindly looks after us, topping us up with biscuits and coffee, as if we need anything more after a hotel breakfast. If that's not enough, those with stamina finished off the weekend with lunch at the River Mill Tavern by the river at Eaton Socon.
Many thanks go to to Judy & Philip Bell who make all the arrangements for the party weekend and do a lot of the hard work involved.
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