OUR club continues to flourish with a really good turn-out each week. We welcomed our annual visitor, Don Buckingham from Norwich, at our meeting on Thursday, October 9.

There followed a rant of the week by Clive Allen, who recounted his irritating airport experiences whilst flying between the UK and the USA. Somewhat unsympathetically, at least one of us suggested he was lucky to have had a holiday at all!

Our speaker this week was our own Grenville Burrows who told us about the city of prunes – yes, prunes. As in custard and prunes. As a committed Francophile, Grenville described the city of Argen in central France where the humble prune is to Argen what asparagus is to Evesham. But surprisingly, prunes are used in a wide variety of culinary dishes, invariably without custard!

Grenville spoke about the history of Argen, with its origins even before Roman times, although it was the Romans who introduced plum trees to that area. They discovered that sun dried plums could be stored for long periods. Grenville told us how the plums are now grown and how they are dried and even brought us some examples to savour. And they were delicious.

We were informed that Argen has had a long and often troubled history as well as quite a few important events and characters. Unfortunately, apart from the cathedral, the town is now somewhat lacking in significant buildings although a recent survey found the local people to be the most contented in all France.

A prune festival is held annually in Argen with about 50,000 visitors to enjoy not just the prunes in all their glory but also to take part in all the joyful activities.

Our speaker next week will be Rosemary Prosser, who talk is titled Hot wheels, cold meals. Do feel free to come along.

CHRIS DONOUGH