Edinburgh Cape Society

Fri 14 Oct 2022: Turtle Feast; It's turtle time again. Some may cry, "cowabunga", but the Cape cries, "spurtles at the ready". The Turtle Feast, originally born of the 18th century's Cape Club dinner in honour of James Thomson, scriber of lyrics to, "Rule Britannia!" (that benevolent? empire), is back. Here's reminder of last year's extravaganza: one of the best attended and most exuberant in recent years.; Meet in Queen Charlotte Rooms, Leith at 7.00pm.
The Cape Society looks forward to seeing you there.
Guests welcome.

Report

An excellent figure of 29 guests, Ladies and Knights enjoyed another Cape Turtle Feast, this time, hosted for the first time, by the Queen Charlotte Rooms in Leith. It was an excellent venue, let down only by the low lighting on Herbert, some lukwarm food and stuttering wine delivery, possibly resulting in some short-selling. Unfortunately, no one kept a close eye on the bottle tally; and why should they: a case for having all bottles on tables at the start of the night, having worked out a good balance between red and white in advance? All speeches and toasts were well received with the possible exception of a late, impromtu 'lady toast' which was received in a mildly confused fashion. Still, all benign participation generally welcome when it comes to the Cape. The singing was perhaps slightly disappointing: a little more sonorous than usual: dunno what happened there. The formal programme started sharp at 7.30 p.m. and was complete by around 10 p.m. giving distinguished guests, lovely Ladies and worthy Knights a good two hours to catch up with one another and meet one or two new faces, some of whom included younger friends of the Cape whose presence and effort to attend was most welcome. Thanks Michael, Janna, Daisy and Alex. The evening came to a close with the rattling of the bar shutters shortly before midnight. All-in-all, another excellent night with some great gladrags on show: Geoff pulled out all the stops with the kilt.

Some video
Turtle Toast
Turtle on Toast

Thanks everyone who came to play along with Herbert, especially Martin who single-handedly arranged the venue and the staff who were generally on-the-ball.