The refurbished venue had a lilac theme with napkins and table flowers in that Spring colour; "Winter" in the title refers to one of our Guests of Honour, Les Winter, who has retired after many years of arranging the layout and production of Ewell Parish News. Our other Guest of Honour, also featured in the title, was the Rev. Pat Hall, Minister of the U.R.C. Churches in Epsom and Ewell, who was accompanied by her husband, Peter.

After a topical grace from the Vicar about "a Bash before Ash", we sat down to a splendid meal prepared by a team of cheerful (but probably exhausted) ladies of the parish. After a melon starter, the pancakes appropriate for the day were served, not as a dessert, but as a main dish, stuffed either with ham and mushrooms or with spinach and cheese; they were unanimously voted as delicious. This gave scope for a selection of desserts, ranging from the creamy and/or chocolaty (and therefore very sinful) to the lusciously fruity. All this was accompanied by a choice of wines or juices. A touch of class was added by one of the "waitresses" who wore an apron with a Latin inscription -even when it was translated as "A Washer of Dishes"! Words of truth indeed!

The courses of the meal were interspersed by entertainments from those well-known Ewell characters, Lloyd and Promilla Mullen. Lloyd, our long-standing Editor of E.P.N., told of hilarious experiences in Egypt and India, and concluded with, for him, an innovation - a resonant song. Prom told us of her wedding day, when the heat caused almost all the main parties to faint, in her own polished and inimitable style.

During the desserts, David Dance - who compered the whole evening with aplomb - introduced the Quiz (which accounts for the "Thought" in "Food for "Thought" in the title above). We were divided into teams named after the main characters in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - and even those called Sleepy, Dopey, or Grumpy maintained their cheerfulness. There were four rounds and each team could choose in advance when to use its Joker. The titles of the rounds were Starters, Child's Play, Worldly Wise and Pot Luck- which didn't give much idea of the very varied range of questions that David had devised. The term "fiendish" came to mind as we struggled to decide the population of China (1.3 billion) or the world record for cycling backwards while playing the violin (38+ miles).

It helped to have read "the Beano "(or was it "the Dandy"?) as a child to recall Desperate Dan's favourite food ("cow pie"); we also tried to remember the title of the forthcoming Harry Potter book (readers can find that for themselves!). Local aerial views proved taxing, and anagrams of British Prime Ministers caused many furrowed brows. One competitor thought that "7 L of H" was "seven levels of Hell" (guilty conscience?) instead of Seven Labours of Hercules!

Running scores were posted on a large chart and the leadership changed as the evening progressed. The eventual winners were the Sleepy team -who saw this as a clear indication that they had been misunderstood when names of teams were handed out! What everyone agreed was that the Quiz had been very enjoyable and ingenious and we were very grateful to David and Jenny Dance for devising and running it so well.

At the close of the proceedings, the Vicar voiced the thanks of all of us to everyone who had worked so hard to make the evening such a success - especially those behind the scenes on cookhouse, servery or scullery duties. To bring us all down to earth the Vicar then reminded us that in two hours time it would be Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. But we all agreed with him that the Shrove Tuesday evening had been well spent.

N.M.H.