Thank you to all who attended our fun and delicious annual Winter Supper celebrating Burns' Night. Even though we only had two and half actual Scots(women) amongst the 64 of us, we definitely did Rabbie proud. To give a suitably Scottish feel, the hall was decorated with Royal Stewart bunting and table runners with rosemary scented flower arrangements and soft candles.
Trying to keep the event as traditional as possible, Revd Preb Jan Knott kicked off the proceedings by saying the Selkirk Grace. We then piped in Alison Simmons to the "Flower of Scotland' (unfortunately just on a CD), who then read the Address to the Haggis in her dulcet Scots tones. A wee dram was provided for the toast. The ceremonial haggis was then duly sliced at the correct moment in the Address - and finally dinner was served. Every diet was catered for - there was even a MacSween Gluten Free haggis available!
The food was wonderful with Judith, Judy and Karen performing most of the cooking and serving. (Not forgetting the Rev's vegetarian chickpea casserole). The Cranachan, Tipsy Laird and Raspberry Crumble were superb desserts and Judith even made shortbread for us. We rounded off dinner with Mull of Kintyre cheddar and Nairn's oatcakes.
As we chatted and got slightly drunk on whisky, we were entertained by a couple of Burns' poetry readings. The highlight being Martin Ward who read to us in a distinctly Northern Irish-Welsh-Scottish Accent. He won a bottle of wine for making us laugh so much. Another highlight was Andy Brown kicking his feet up to "Donald, where's yoor troosers'. So funny - shame we didn't film that.
We raised over £600 after costs which is a great sum, to be divided between the village hall improvement fund and the Church bells repair fund. Thank you again to everyone who attended and who contributed to the evening. It was wonderful to see a few new faces and a few of our neighbours from Farmborough and Stanton Prior. It was also great to welcome back a few 'old' faces who hadn't been to a hall event in a while.
