Sampford Arundel WI

ONCE upon a time, there was a WI called ‘Sampford Arundel WI. They were very, very, old - well, not the members (only some of them) - but the WI itself.

One day, they were thinking what they could do to celebrate the Christmas Season. They had lots and lots of good ideas; trouble was, they were all either illegal, fattening, or immoral and George Clooney is married and Brad Pitt lives too far away.

Suddenly, Kay, who is president, and bright ideas is her job anyway, had a really, really good idea. ‘Let’s go to the Beam Bridge, ’she said ‘And have a great big feed-up’.

No-one liked to argue; (she was waving her magic wand at the time, and you just don’t). They’d been there for the last few years; thing was it had always been a right jolly evening and everyone realised that was, indeed, a brilliant plan.

Head-girl Kay had won the day! Oops, sorry, wrong book.

She put her elves - aka the committee - to work, and in a twinkling, all was arranged. (Twinkling takes quite a bit of doing , actually, but this is a fairy story). Husbands were turned into coach-men, cars became golden coaches, the usual T-shirts and jeans became gorgeous ball-gowns, sensible shoes became glass slippers etc etc until the Fairy God-mothers’ - aka Vron and Heather - arms ached.

When members arrived they saw that Father Christmas (aka elves Wendy and Vera) had been already (he always likes to get the awkward ones sorted first) as a table was laid full of gifts.

They all tucked in to a delicious meal and were told of even more adventures to come - group carols - and in the New Year, lunch, art, craft, book, scrabble, events (unfortunately the writer of this rather lost the plot at this stage).

Then some of the naughtier pixies - er, members - started blowing little balls at each other, and reading cracker jokes, and wearing paper hats, and setting off streamers.

Then came the entertainment,some funny, some serious, and singing songs and carols. All, brilliant.

The clatter of reindeers hooves (actually, husbands with golden coaches) was heard, and the wonderful evening ended with ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and good wishes for Christmas and 2017.

As silence fell, a small mouse - who’d missed the last coach - spied a glass slipper twinkling in the moon shine. He sighed; someone always leaves something behind. He curled up in it and went fast asleep dreaming of Sugar Plums.

It had been such a lovely evening.

Members of Sampford Arundel wish all your staff and readers a happy Christmas and good 2017.