New Year House Party
By Andrew Arnison

Arrived at the Royal Clifton Hotel Southport in the afternoon of Sunday 30th Dec. @4pm. We unpacked the bus and went to our rooms and unpacked ourselves. We got washed and changed for the evening meal, we had a choice of menu at the meal and afterwards there was an entertainer, who played music to dance by, for the rest of the evening.

The next day was New Years Eve and we went shopping and looked around the January sales. Some of us bought quite a lot. In the evening we had the Gala meal, which we got dressed up for. We were piped in to dinner by a proper piper in a kilt with bag pipes and he also piped the haggis. It was quite a meal and after dinner we had another entertainer who kept us going until midnight when we celebrated with champagne and poppers.

Because we had such a late night we got up late the following morning, in fact we didn’t come down for breakfast until about 11:00, which made it a brunch really. It was a full cooked meal which included liver, chops, bacon sausage, black pudding, fried eggs, scrambled eggs etc. Some of us forced ourselves to go for a walk afterwards to the pier, before returning for Tea with scones or tea cakes.

On the 2nd we went to a pantomime, we had a choice of 2 to go to; some went to see Sid Little in Aladdin, and some others went to see a comedy about saving Christmas. Unfortunately after an excellent dinner we had to sort out our packing for leaving for home the next day.