After golf at Grantown, we made the short trip to the Grant Arms Hotel - our first stay there. It's a big hotel and it was mobbed - there was a group of Dutch Mazda MX5 enthusiasts staying there - of whom more later.
We showered, changed, grabbed a complementary drink from the hotel, and gathered down in the Osprey Suite for a little interactive presentation I had prepared - or at least, most of us did. Search parties had to be sent out for Dick and Gary - the youngest member of our group is already exhibiting signs of severe cranial decline - it must be contagious.
We had a laugh going over the old times again - as Maurice Chevalier famously sang - "Ah yes, I remember it well" - not. Names, places, dates etc were all a blur and the usual subject of dispute. We showed photos of absent friends, courses we'd played, places we'd stayed and drinking dens visited, rounding it all off with a roll of honour of previous winners.
We were served dinner in the adjacent private lounge and, afterwards, we asked one of the very helpful young waitresses to take a photo of the entire team of 18. We had 20 booked originally, but Nigel had to change his plans and couldn't make it, and Ken Black had to cancel Monday, but Richard joined us for dinner and Monday's golf, so this was the line-up for the first of the photos, with ghostly apparitions from the past as a backdrop:
We took another one - this time with a bit more emphasis on the present rather than the past:
Most of us went through to the lounge afterwards - although some sloped off to bed - and we were greeted by this sight:
Yes, it was the Dutch Mazda lovers reciting Burns and other bits of Scottish "kultchur". One of their number - Gerda by name - then came over and engaged in conversation with Archie, whose command of Dutch is, of course, legendary:
Richard started singing "Yesterday" and everyone in the lounge joined in - all in perfect Scouse harmony. Dan was then encouraged to display his immaculate memory of "To a Haggis" to show these Dutch how it really should be done:
(Go to blog to view video)
Having forgotten the words at the end, one of the Dutch was kind enough to offer Dan a complete Burns lyrics book:
Archie then took to the centre of the floor and announced to the assembled throng - did they realise we have a pop superstar in our midst? One "Sebastian Dangerfield" no less - and here he is to give us his wonderful and unique version of "House of the Rising Sun" - you can guess the rest.
Great evening.
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