Toad in the Hole

And that, I assume, is what most people would think of as toad in the hole - sausages cooked in a Yorkshire pudding batter. Very tasty it is, too, provided the sausages are proper butcher's sausages and not the mass produced splodge sold in supermarkets.  It is always thought of as a traditional British dish although, according to Wikiwotsit, the earlier recipes simply call for odds and ends of meat, or the remains of stewed meat, to be used rather than sausages.

But here in Silly Sussex, toad in the hole has a different meaning.  Here, toad in the hole is an pub game.   The game involves throwing brass discs ("toads") from a distance of about seven feet (I don't know the actual distance according to the rules) towards a stool with a lead top, at the centre of which is a hole only slightly, very slightly, larger than the toads.  The game can be played between two individuals or between teams, just as in darts.  Again as in darts, scoring starts from 31 with the object of decreasing this to nil.  A toad going down the hole scores two points and a toad landing cleanly on the top of the stool scores one.  A toad falling off or hitting the back board scores zero.

A toad stool

Anyway, on Monday this week several local Lions Clubs took part in a competition - the first event in our annual Olympics.  My club entered two teams with mixed results.  Each team played four games with one team losing all four and the other, winning two and losing two.  A convivial evening, with fish and chips served halfway through.

The better of our two teams came joint third - out of seven - but who cares?  There's plenty of time to catch up.  The next event: a quiz, then a beetle drive (or Scalextric), more pubs games like shove ha'penny, darts and snooker, shuffleboard, kurling and skittles.