Xmas Festivities. In March.

It was our works Christmas party on Saturday. March might seem like a strange time to hold it, but it was planned for December and then cancelled due to all the snow we had. Saturday was the first mutually convenient date that we could come up with. It was held at Wynyard Hall, a truly lovely setting and conveniently very close to work!

The fact that it was in March and not actually a Christmas party didn't detract from it at all, in fact most people agreed it made it better. For a start, you could choose from the A La Carte menu instead of being stuck with the limited choice available at Christmas parties. Secondly, it was much more intimate because the normal restaurant service has a limited number of covers whereas Christmas parties cater for hundreds. Finally, there was no awful, noisy disco! (Ooh, does that make me sound like an old fuddy-duddy?)

The food was lovely, but I only took photos of the desserts. My meal consisted of

• Goat's Cheese & Sweet Potato Pave with Aubergine chutney
• Cauliflower Risotto (I've never considered making this, but will now, it was lovely!)
• Cheeseboard (a selection of artisan local cheeses - unfortunately I have no idea what they actually were, which would have been nice).

Cheeseboard

Wife started with Leek & Potato soup and finished with a trio of Crème brûlée.

Trio of Crème brûlée

Another good thing about it not being at Christmas is that there was no real pressure - nothing else that needed doing, no trying to fit it in amongst a myriad of other things. And no bad weather! For my money, we should always have Christmas in March!