KONETUR AND OLDERMANDSGILDE

For the past 100 years, on the first Thursday of July, all of the women in the local village have gone on a konetur (literally "wife's trip"). Until the day, nobody other than the organisers knows what will happen. And, this being an all-female gathering, nobody (i.e. the men) gets to know much about what went on.

The difference this year was that the men decided to do something as well. So they held an oldermandsgilde (literally an "oldermands" party). In the olden days, the leading farmers in the village sometimes had important matters to discuss. This they did by sitting on large stones, arranged around a big tree (both the stones and the tree still exist). The job of the oldermand, a post which rotated amongst them from one year to the next, was to walk round the village and summon the others by blowing on a horn. The horn now has a place of honour on the wall of the village hall, built next to the tree and where the 22 of us had the dinner.

For starters, we had eel that had been marinated in port and then fried, followed by fish with prawns and new potatoes, rhubarb tart and creme fraiche, then coffee and cream cake. This was all washed down by copious amounts of beer, schnaps and white wine. There were some serious tummies on display, starting with the chef, who was almost as wide as he was large; so portions were generous, to say the least (to give you an idea, I had three helpings of eel, and there were still some left over). There was also some serious drinking.

What I most remember about the evening was an animated conversation about bees with my neighbour, organiser of the party, maker of the cakes, brother to the chef, and only slightly slimmer. Apparently he has four hives, and is an experienced beekeeper. It's amazing what you find interesting after a heavy meal and lots of alcohol.

Walter Blotscher