Cheats Xmas Lunch

December 16 - Cheats Xmas Lunch

This years CXL was prepared by our recently re-elected Commodore Nigel Knowles. He's actually not a bad cook, comes from being in the Boy Scouts I think.

When Lyn & I arrived at 11:00 to open the bar Nigel, ably assisted by Stuart, Don and Helen were already peeling spuds. Lyn set about laying up the tables while I got the bar sorted out. By about 12:30 some thirty people had arrived and the bar was heaving.

Just before 13:00 Nigel called for some 'Junior' volunteers to help serve lunch. This included Tomato vegetable soup, roast chicken, roast & boiled potatoes and a medley of vegetables. Desert was Xmas pudding with brandy sauce and ice cream. This was followed by coffee and mints. The meal was great. Well done Nigel. Thanks also to everybody who helped serve-up and or wash-up and a special thanks to all the youngsters who acted as waiters and waitresses. Good job guys!

After lunch the room was cleared, four teams selected and battle commenced with darts, bar billiards and table tennis competitions being hotly contested.

The afternoon was interesting, a bar billiards ball jumped the table and a ping-pong ball nearly got skewered by a dart. Nobody seem to know which team they belonged to but this didn't seem to matter and in the end three teams were declared joint winners.

The prize was sweets all round with extra goodies going to the younger members as a thank you for their lunch time duties. The afternoon ended with tea and hot mince pies.

Further lunches are planned for the New Year, the first I think being linked with a sailing rules quiz. The last time we had one of those it proved very interesting. Nobody seemed to know anything but everybody had an opinion. Let's hope some RYA racing rules reading has been done since then.

Dominic Lunniss serving

Dominic Lunniss Near Capsize
Picture by Mike Hendra