Cuisine of the Lebanon is trending in Leigh on Mendip!

What a fabulous evening! Wafaa Powell brought us such a wonderful taste of her country and it's cookery at our meeting on Monday night! She prepared some very simple dishes, using very basic, readily available ingredients - and wow! A real taste sensation! Everyone sampled the dishes and many of us couldn't resist having seconds! (would have been rude not to!). Lots of dishes went home, too! There was some talk of making the fattouch for the Harvest Supper! ( an absolutely gorgeous salad! Though, I made it for tea on Tuesday, and getting the right kind of lettuce and being accurate with the amounts of lemon juice and olive oil is clearly pretty crucial! Wafaa appeared to just slosh it all in! No! That's years of practised sloshing, I would say! Needs careful tasting before serving! Well worth the effort) Wafaa is an excellent speaker, whose Belly Dancing evening we all thoroughly enjoyed a couple of years ago. She asked us to recommend her to other groups; she does parties, too! Fun!

Tea towel sales went very well! Like hot cakes! Inadvertently we appear to have a competition going on how far a tea towel will travel - if Val decides to send one to her daughter in Tasmania, she could well win that one! Unless anyone else has a more distant contact....?

There were loads of dates to put in the diary, too: Monday 17 September programme planning meeting,  first Friday of October lunch at The Bell,  9 October, Group meeting at Kilmersdon about the history of the Kennet and Avon canal: another good speaker, from all accounts. Visit to the cheese factory at Wyke Farm in Bruton, either 26 Sept or 10 Oct. Somerset Annual meeting 10 November, Christmas Fair at Denman 1 or 2 December, our Christmas meal 3 December, County Carol Service 12 December. Please let me know immediately if you wish to attend any of these.

Wells film centre : WI Film Club

I've just been over to Wells to join the WI film club, which entitles me to attend the tea matinées, have a cup of tea and a biscuit and pay no booking fee when organising my viewing as well as a 50p reduction on each ticket. Since it cost me £5 to join, all I have to do is see 11 films and I'll be quids in!

The first one on my agenda is Anna Karenina; Marguerite and I will be going next Thursday afternoon. If anyone else would like to come with us, please let me know! (£5 to join and £6 for the film)

Another fun and fabulous lunch!

Yesterday, we met at The Bell for a really tasty lunch - the food was excellent! The company was superlative! Thank you all for coming! I'm looking forward to next time,  Friday 5 October 12.15 for 12.30

Don't forget that Monday is an open WI meeting, so friends, partners, neighbours, the person in the street..... all will be welcome!

The President's Evening

Another wet evening! At least this year we didn't even try to call it a garden party!

We had a great time! Lots of chat and lovely food to share. We watched the film of the Group Olympics warm up and could really see why the Real Olympics were such a success of human endeavour and friendliness - all thanks to our preparations and lead! Caroline is just checking her in-box for the note of recognition from Lord Coe; we had asked him not to mention us in his closing speech on Sunday, not wanting to take all the credit!  We congratulated our medal winners, Jane (gold, with Sue R) and Gill (silver).  Nunney were the China of our awards table, we were more, well, Australia? Next time, we'll co-opt Mo as an honorary member!

The video of our Synchronised Tea Drinking is on You Tube, just do a search for that or Leigh on Mendip WI. Be sure to hit the 'like' button! We'll show the DVD of the whole event at one of our meetings in the Autumn!

September promises to be a busy month, beginning with lunch at The Bell on the first Friday at 12.15. It's also our programme planning month, so start racking your brains for good ideas for speakers and activities.

Ladies who lunch....

.......  had a lovely time today at The Bell Inn! Lunch was good and the conversation covered just about every topic you can think of, well, perhaps we didn't mention religion?
We all walked there, too, so can clock up the miles on our Big Walk Little Splash effort!
Next date Friday 7 September at The Bell Inn. 12.15

We've had information about the next Real Jam Festival to be held at Denman  College; so I have two thoughts on this! One, we must organise another alternative Jam Festival for Leigh, because it was good fun last time! And Two, the one at Denman is on 1 & 2 December and incorporates a Christmas market as well. How about going up there for one of those days? It would be a good chance to visit Denman and look, with wonder and awe at the skill of the real jam makers and do a spot of Christmas shopping. Sounds like a good plan to me. Have a look in your diary to see if you are free on Saturday 1 December and let me know if you want to come!

Calling all WI film buffs!

The cinema in Wells is offering special rates for WI members at specific times! It was mentioned in a recent issue of County News and yesterday Eileen mentioned that she and her husband had turned up to the first event... And was surprised to find that she was the only WI member there!

She said the next date planned is Friday 10 August; day time and shared with U3A at the moment. You  need your WI membership card to get the discount. I shall contact Eileen for a few more details, in case any Leigh members would like to go along.

ACWW day at Binegar

What a fabulous day! Marguerite, Sue V and I went to Eileen Hurd's day at Binegar village hall which she organised to celebrate the Association of Country Women of the World. The speakers in the morning were excellent, so passionate about the work they do; one is a UN delegate and has visited many ACWW projects since she joined in 2007 (at the age of 75!) she gave such an insight into the lives of the women who live in Belarus. Next came Kay, who has been actively involved with the Wells charity to aid the children of Chernobyl. She has welcomed 6 children into her home over the years and has visited Belarus to help run a play scheme in the summer holidays. Both of their talks were entertaining, amusing and very touching.
We are so very lucky to live where we do and to  have the freedom we have.

In the afternoon an Oxford geologist gave a very interesting description of Iceland with photos he had taken during a recent holiday.

A very interesting and thought provoking day, very well organised by Eileen, well attended and well hosted by Binegar W.I.  thank you all.