Stitch and Bitch Christmas Lunch

I haven't been in the Old Black Lion for a few years (and that was for a Christmas do, too). The last time I went in there regularly, they still had a stool by the bar for Bruce Addyman, who lived next door and liked to go in for a quiet pint now and then. We'd got friendly with John and Joan Collins, previous owners, and used to chat to their visitors about the area and generally make them welcome.
They'd set up a table for us in the corner near the fire. Ten of us managed to get there, and that included Elinor who'd come all the way from Newtown!
The food was excellent (and there were rather too many vegetables!). I chose the melon and prawn starter, expecting a big smiling slice of melon - but it had been carved into little balls, dotted around the plate, with the prawns and dressing in the middle. Ros had the tomato soup, and that nearly filled her up on its own.
I went for the traditional options for the rest of the meal - turkey and Christmas pud. Both were delicious, and plenty of it. The trout looked gorgeous, too, and so did the vegetarian option, leek and mushroom pancakes. Other sweets were pannecotta and a big, fluffy cheesecake with enormous blackberries.
The conversation flowed freely, too, moving from an anti-Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer (like the anti-Christ - "Rusifer!") to the novels of Terry Pratchett and Phil Rickman, and meandering over crochet, weaving, geckos, the wonders of double glazing, having your hair dried in a mangle (!), unpleasant vicars - and fun vicars like Father Richard, and much more. Elinor said we were much more interesting than the Builth Stitch and Bitchers!
In short, a good time was had by all.
The group is going to try to meet again on 16th December between 6pm and 8pm at the Swan, or failing that on 4th January.

We did think of having our meal at the Swan, as we meet there, but different ones of us asked at least three times for a Christmas menu to look at, and the only one they came up with was for Christmas Day itself, which we didn't want at all.