Afternoon tea was on the menu at our June outing when a number of Capel Ladies visited Hall Farm at Stratford St Mary. The setting was a pleasant one with views from the cafe of the farm fields and various animals including llamas, donkeys and sheep; and it was another hot afternoon so it was cooler to sit inside.

The tea and cakes were served on heavy wooden boards which were difficult to pass up and down to everyone, and although there was a good variety of sandwiches they must have been left uncovered for a while as the bread was a bit dry, There didn’t seem to be a huge choice of cakes and the scones came creamed and jammed already with minimum fillings, so the food was rather disappointing. Having placed the platters and pots of tea and coffee on the tables the waiter/waitresses left the ladies to their own devices and didn’t return to see if anything else was required, so the party felt rather neglected on the whole.

After the tea several ladies visited the farm shop to look around before returning to Capel. A slightly disappointing afternoon, especially when each person had paid out almost £13.00 for their afternoon tea-time treat.

As 2018 is our 50^th Anniversary Year it was appropriate for those members who had any gold-coloured items of clothing to wear them at our Summer Social. Keeping the same theme, we had two quizzes organized by Shirley Ward; one which included the word “Gold” in either the question or the answer, and one which was a “Guess their Identities” photo quiz, where – displayed on the walls of the Vine Lounge – was a collection of photos of present members – “Golden Girls” – taken 50 years ago! Both quizzes were challenging and the winners certainly deserved their prizes!

Mary Butters was the expert when it came to identifying those glamorous young ladies, she managed to guess 28 out of 31 correctly, and the Gold Quiz Champions were Colette, Averil and Trisha! As usual there was a mouth-watering buffet consisting of a delicious selection of savoury and sweet treats provided by each of us, plus a complimentary glass of something to wash it down with. There was lots of chatter and laughter throughout the evening, and a chance to win even more prizes from our Raffle. A jolly time was had by all!