Last week

I'm still smarting a little.  It's not that I'm a bad loser; well, not usually at any rate.  But last week still rankles a little.  It was at the regular monthly dinner meeting of Brighton Lions Club.  We were at a new venue for us, one of the several golf clubs around the fringes of the city.  There had been a choice of dishes and I had decided to have the gammon steak for my main course rather than the roast turkey but I did opt for Christmas pudding (and custard) for dessert.  I wished I hadn't.  It was possibly the most indigestible Christmas pudding I have ever eaten - and I've eaten a good few bad ones in my time.  Mind you, another Lion said how good she thought the pudding was.  Perhaps there's no accounting for taste, or maybe I was just unlucky.

(I'm eating turkey today - and I hope the Christmas pudding to follow is better than last week's.  Out to lunch with the management committee and staff of Brighton Lions Housing Society.)

But that's not what causing the smarting.  One of the Lions had organised a quiz with question papers for each table.  One of the answers and one of the questions are causing me grief.  One question asked, what is the date of Twelfth Night?  I said it is the 5th of January, only to be told that the correct answer is the 6th of January.  Wrong!  According to the Christian calendar, the first day of Christmas is Christmas Day itself, 25th December.  There are 12 days in the Christmas period, so the 12th is 5th January.  In any case, 6th January is Epiphany.

It was our own fault that we got the wrong answer to another question.  How many gifts, we were asked, would the singer of the Twelve Days of Christmas receive?  We all said 78, but that's not right.  And I'm not going to tell you the correct answer just yet!  In the meantime, you can work it out.  Come back tomorrow for the right answer.

~~~~~

Still walking round Hollingbury hill fort, aka the Roman Camp, this is the southern rampart.  Its ditch is still there, albeit a lot shallower than it probably was 3500 years ago.  I expect the rampart is lower as well.