This weekend was our annual pilgrimage to Pembrokeshire for the banquet. We started driving straight after work and after several stops for food, toilet, and getting Miss B into her PJs we made it to our B&B and went straight to bed.
This gave us all Saturday to potter around and get ready, so we took Miss B to run around on a windswept beach before going back for a dose of CBeebies and sorting out our costumes. I don't have any photos of us all though.
This year the theme was the travels of Marco Polo, so dishes served were taken from China, India and Venice, with one return taken from each. As always the food was superb. From China we had mutton dumplings, crispy duck, plum balls (drool!) and "clairvoyant biscuits" as a subtlety. From India it was breads and chutneys, a fantastic "pre-Columban" (i.e. no chillis) chicken curry, a lovely coconut desert thingy, followed by an (un-) subtlety of a very daft Kama Sutra inspired cake. Finally, the Venician return was pigeon and mushrooms in cream (fantastic), salt fish and bread (wow) and a gorgeous lemon torte, with little chocolate thingies as a subtlety to finish off. Of course there was plenty of mead and ale to wash it all down.
<3 and I were doing entertainment again this year as they haven't worked out how to stop us yet, but at least some quality was introduced into the procedings with one of the other banqueters putting her lovely voice to good use. So <3 wowed everyone with a very delicate performance of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, I got everyone standing up (mostly on chairs), and for this year's firsts: I danced a solo jig in public for the first time (Princess Royal, Bampton — inexpertly, but it went OK) and then drummed (on my djembe -- again inexpertly) for <3 to dance.
Lots of fun. The discussions have already begun on what next year's theme will be.
