Out to Lunch

Bank pensioners club Christmas Lunch today. The last one we went to was in 2019 and there was an understandable air of caution over today’s event. Everyone encouraged to take a LFT before attending and to wear a mask except when seated. Though it does seem to have slipped a few people’s minds as they came to leave, which is when I took the photo!
A nice meal, but it still felt a little strange to be at a large gathering after all the doom and gloom warnings of the last few days. There were quite a few gaps at the tables so I’m presuming some people didn’t want to take the risk. But I’m guessing most people there were triple jabbed and hadn’t been to South Africa recently, so we were probably as safe as we could be under the circumstances! Let’s hope I’m not proved wrong, for everyone’s sake.
As there had been no other club events in the intervening two years, we all “won” a raffle prize. The bank normally gives the club a subsidy for events, based on the number of members, and that subsidy had still been received, even though there had been no events. The decision was therefore taken by the committee, that all those members who attended the lunch would take home a “prize”. We ended up with a bottle of Port and a bottle of Red Wine - and all agreed it was a very nice gesture by the committee and much appreciated.
We took advantage of having to travel to Preston for the lunch, by leaving Kendal early and heading further down the M6 to IKEA in Warrington as we need a bookcase for the study. Got that straight away and put it in the car to see how much room was left, as we also wanted a couple of new office chairs, but didn’t know how much room they would take up. As it happened, the boxes they come in are smaller than I expected (I’m presuming a fair bit of self-assembly may be required) so everything fitted in quite comfortably, though Mrs C did have to sit behind me rather than in the front passenger seat, as that was now full of bookcase!
All in all a good day out. Got what we wanted from IKEA, then had a nice Xmas lunch on the way home, with the added bonus of a couple of “free” bottles as well!