We set off for Tring, Hertfordshire at about 2 o’clock, about half an hour away. It’s nice to have somewhere local as we travel all around the South East and into London.
Tonight is a barn dance in a proper barn with straw bales for seats, we thought it may be freezing but they have plenty of heating and it’s really quite cosy.
Hog roasts and barn dances actually go really well together, with the smell of the pig roasting away while the “diddly dee” music plays and the guests, especially the blokes downing pints rather quickly in order to get some rhythm into those old legs, and also to use the drink as an excuse for not having the faintest idea of what they are doing.
The barn dance comes to an interval at 9:00 pm and we have the pig up and ready to carve.
This is where we normally find we start off with a very un- orderly queue with people trying to pinch the mouth watering crispy crackling even before we start carving.
Everybody is served in about half an hour. As well as the pig in a bun with crispy crackling, apple sauce and stuffing, they are having a couple of salads and hot new potatoes in herb butter.
The guests are sitting about in their jeans and check shirts on bales of straw with a plate of food in one hand and a beer in the other hand and trying there hardest to explain why they were grabbing the wrong partners all night !!
They are all called back up to dance again, and Karen and I start carving the rest of the pig and putting the meat on platters for later on. We clear away the mess and quietly remove all our equipment from the barn and pack everything into our van.
John and Jacky, the hosts can’t thank us enough and loads of the guests compliment us on how lovely the food was and how easily everything went. We are invited to stay for the rest of the evening and try our hand at barn dancing. We look a bit out of place in our chef’s whites in between cowboys and cowgirls and this does not help when everyone now knows what they are doing and we haven’t got a clue. Still we have a bit of a laugh which is what it’s all about.
We have a couple of really nice ales and stay for a while before saying our good byes and heading back home.