Got to do a short blog on this.
Last night I was at our ICE East of England REB committee meeting in Whittlesford – South of Cambridge near Duxford. I was in the chair.
The meeting was at the Red Lion Hotel and we have been holding meetings there for a fair number of years now.
Recently Holiday Inn have built a new hotel sort of in the grounds alongside the railway (looks quite nice actually) and over the summer the Red Lion has had a fair amount of building work done and a refit.
So we turn up for the meeting in the new look Hotel and it is very posh. We had the new private dining room which was very nice – wonky stone slab floor – biiiiig dining table – maybe 15′ long by 5′ wide with bonkets along one wall.
A few comments as people arrived about the place. Some jokes and comments.
The pre-ordered food was a bit late but as the lass said ‘ the chef wanted to cook it fresh for us’ which was okay.
In the past we have had gammon and chips, or scampi and chips, or fish and chips. Big Portions. Big plates.
So the fish and chips arrives for some of our people. Defo posh nosh. The fish was in a miniature fry basket thing on greaseproof paper, the chips (about 6 ) were in a wee round miniature fry basket thing. There was a wee pile of red cabbage and a wee jar of of tartar sauce. The whole was served on a wooden board on more greaseproof paper. A poor photo of Paul’s gammon and chips is below.
Others had similarly unusually served food. I had a chicken pot pie which thankfully was a pie in a pie in on a plate. I have to say the food was good though so top marks there.
So there was great hilarity and sarcastic comments when the food was coming in and when the lass asjed if there was anything more we needed quite a few muttered under their breaths that a plate would be nice!
Regional Director Glen was sat beside we and he was obviously struggling to extract his fish from the fry basket thing and the greasproof paper rustled noisily every time he tried. By this time I was finding very difficult to suppress my laughter every time the paper rustled as he tried to get the fish out.
By the time he got to finishing I was almost in tears laughing.
I guess you had to be there but it was hugely funny.
WE did at one stage consider the pro’s and con’s of using the table and boards to play table tennis but decided it was too silly!
I wish I had taken more photos but there you go.
The meeting went well as it goes – my first time chairing in my role as REB Vice Chair with Chris – the Chair – away on holiday.
All in all, the re-vamped Red Lion Hotel is very nice – lost a bit of its old world charm – but tidy and old with a modern twist.
andrew kenyon photography 