Searching for a collective noun.

Though I suspect few would have known it if they had passed by tonight in an Edinburgh restaurant ( the excellent "Ondine" on George IV Bridge which occupies the space taken up in the previous building on the site by the SNP Parliamentary Group offices in the first Scottish Parliament elected in 1999) this gathering is probably unique.

The picture was taken by me and I was Scottish Environment Minister from 2007 to 2009. My successor in the post was Roseanna Cunningham who served from 2009 to 2011 and she is on the right here. She was succeeded by Stewart Stevenson (2011/12) who is second on the left. He was followed in the job by Paul Wheelhouse who was there until November ( he is sitting in the middle) and in the most recent reshuffle he was replaced by Aileen MacLeod , sitting on the left. The constant was Richard Lochhead as Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs who headed up the portfolio throughout the period and still does. He is standing at the back.

The Environment Ministers were all there to honour the man in the picture not named so far - Dr Bob McIntosh , formerly Director of the Forestry Commission in Scotland and now Head of the Scottish Government Environment & Forestry Directorate who will retire next month. All of us have benefited greatly from his support, advice and encouragement in our time as Environment Minister ( which we all agree is the best job in Government) and all of us wanted to mark his retirement in some way .

Hence tonight's dinner,which must have been the only time when five Scottish environment ministers sat down together for a meal.

Richard just happened to be at a nearby table but he joined us to try and find a collective noun to describe the gathering.

However we failed to find it.....