The Chiltern District Welsh Society Summer Lunch is always something to approach with eager anticipation but also with a degree of trepidation.
Will it rain or won’t it?
Will all the pieces of the gazebos be there?
Will there be a quiz?!

15th June started as usual with the ultimate male bonding exercise – forget rugby matches, days at the cricket or stag weekends: erecting the gazebos beats them hands down! It sounds easy enough, but there’s always a pole missing at a crucial moment, or poles spring out of connectors unexpectedly; until, that is, the covering goes on, when all seems to bind magically together. This year our dedicated group of chaps managed the feat in only a little over an hour, which is, I think, probably a record.

Many thanks to all who participated, and also to the ladies who provided our table decorations.

We had our usual luck with the weather. It didn’t rain, and while it certainly wasn’t particularly sunny or warm, the temperature was probably more tolerable than last year’s blazing sunshine. Jean and Gwyn’s beautiful garden provided an idyllic setting. The Summer Lunch is one of our main purely social events, and it was hard for me to persuade our 51 attendees to tear themselves away from chatting and/or exploring the garden and admiring the fruit and vegetables on display. Nevertheless, we managed to eat our way through a delicious buffet lunch, without a quiz to distract us this year!

The food was provided by the ever reliable Ann Tennant. This year she had an unexpected assistant in the form of a very cheeky Robin with designs on the croutons!

Apart from this, nothing very much happened – it was just one of those days when everyone seemed to enjoy each other’s company.

I must thank Gwyn and Jean Owen for being the perfect hosts. The Society’s first ever Summer Lunch took place in their garden 14 years ago. I found myself wondering why we had not returned sooner!

Jonathan Pegler