Christmas Meals

I've been away for a few days, and since I got back, I've been out every evening (I'm even going out later this evening) - which is great for my social life, but not so good for the blog!
So here's a bit of catching up:

This year I've been out to two Christmas meals in Hay.
The first was organised by the ladies of the Stitch and Bitch group - as has become traditional, we went to the Black Lion. In fact, we were the very first Christmas lunch that they did this year. I went for the traditional options, and the turkey was lovely, with heaps of vegetables. One of the ladies is on a restricted diet for health reasons at the moment, but she still managed to have a decent meal, and said it was nice to relax her regime for a little while. Another lady, who has been working frantically on her Etsy shop (she hand dyes wool) even brought some knitting with her to do between courses.
So that started the Festive Season off very well.

This week, the staff of Hay Cinema Bookshop went to the Globe for our Christmas dinner. We had exclusive use of the café in the basement, and could watch the chef at work at the kitchen at the end of the room. We also had a young lady running up and down those steep stairs to bring a constant flow of drinks to the table. The red wine was very nice indeed (and not much of it splashed onto my skirt when the person across the table from me accidentally knocked a wine glass over - it mostly went on the floor!).
Again, the vegetables were provided in mountainous quantities along with tender meat, but we still just had room at the end for the sweet - I had a slice of something chocolatey which was just enough after such an enormous meal.
Meanwhile upstairs, the Open Mic evening was going on, and we could hear the singers and musicians.
At one point Justin, who also performs at Baskerville Hall's Wednesday evening sessions, came down to see if the kitchen was open. By that stage, the chef had made his farewells and left, to applause from all the diners because it was a really lovely meal. However, one of us had ordered cheese and biscuits and was struggling a bit to finish it, so Justin went back upstairs with the plate!
As the alcohol had flowed pretty freely, the people who lived out of town shared a taxi home - I only had to totter round the corner.
The following morning, one member of staff was heard to say that he felt like a Burmese python who had swallowed a young antelope!