A Progressive New Year

Last night, being New Years Eve an' all, we decided to take part in something a bit different here in sunny Buttonwood Bay. 

No, not wife swapping or even pole dancing. For one thing I don't have a wife to swap and the last time I shimmied up or down a Pole, he was none too pleased about it. 

So we had a progressive dinner party.

Whaddyamean what's one of those ?

Well a few of us got together and arranged to have a 4 course meal spread over 4 houses.  Yes, yes I know what you're thinking. What a waste of good food. But we didn't actually plaster mashed tatters and gravy over our homes. No, the idea was for one household to provide the starter course, another the salad course, a third the entree and the last house, the dessert. We'd move from house to house eating these courses.....over the course of the evening, so to speak.

Progressive, you see.

There were 11 of us and I set the ball rolling with the starter course. I fixed kebab skewers with peppers, onion, pineapple, prawns, two types of sausage, tomato and steak. Except that I forgot to use the pineapple even though I'd bought some.

I created 35 of them and I thought they were pretty darned good.

Everyone arrived at 4pm as planned and I had most of the skewers sizzling away on the bbq by then. I also prepared a roasted red pepper dip with crackers and fresh vegetables. A creamy salsa dip served with tortilla shells rounded off the course and copious amounts of wine helped to wash it all down.

Oh ok so Deb and Den helped a bit but I did fix some of the items on a few of the skewers !!

Then we all got in our golf carts and headed up the road to Clair & Mary's place for the salad course. After that we went a bit further to Carl & Jackie's house for the entree and finally onto Eldy & Marty's house for dessert.

I won't go into the details of those other courses in case I miss something out and get thrown into the lake for my gastronomic ommisions. Suffice it to say, it was all wonderful and we were all full and merry by the time the official eating (but not the drinking) was over......at 7:30pm.

I'll only post one other photo and it's actually of me eating some delicious lemon meringue pie provided by Marty. I set my camera down for 2 seconds and this is what happens !  Thank you Debby.



We then golf carted back to Carl & Jackie's house for an evening of Uno, which is an excellent card game if you've never tried it. We played till just before midnight when we packed it in and switched on the telle to join with poor old Dick Clark to see in the New Year from Times Square.

Dick Clark is to New Years Eve in America what Andy Stewart was for us in the UK. Sadly right now they both look about the same too. 79 year old Dick had a stroke back in 2004 and suddenly the Cliff Richard of America (in terms of youthful appearance) aged overnight and became.....well 75 I guess. Joining the show as we did with just a couple of minutes to go till midnight, we didn't see or hear too much of him but what we did hear was painful to listen to and I hope for his sake he retires soon.

And that was it. After a round of hand shakes, high fives, hugs and even some french kissing (Carl and Clair, I have photos !!), we climbed into our carts and headed off into the darkness. Well we headed to our homes actually and passed enough lit bedrooms to suggest that we weren't the only ones who had managed to ward off sleep and see in the New Year.

I keep telling you, this is an ACTIVE community !!!!

Now then, where did I put that diary..............