November 22nd

The fodder of the evening was meat and veg pie with mushy peas, with rice pudding or stewed apples for pudding.

Number fed: 60. This included a massive rush at the beginning of the evening as a result of certain football matches being on.

The pie was made from; 6 tins of stewed steak, 2 tins corned beef, 8 fresh potatoes (peeled and chopped), 6 fresh carrots (peeled and chopped), an unknown number of tins of vegetables that included carrots, peas, mushrooms and other root veg, gravy granules and 4 packs ready-made shortcrust pastry. It was a nice surprise to find some fresh vegetables to hand when we arrived at the Wellspring. The pie would also have been a bit more of a stew without the pastry that my parents donated.

The rice pudding came from tins... again, an unknown number. This is the one pudding at the Wellspring that doesn’t get accompanied by instant custard, but it does get the odd dollop of jam.

The stewed apples were made from fresh cooking apples that we also happened to find along with the potatoes and carrots. A donation arrived while we were preparing the food, so we also had clementines and Egyptian dumplings to hand out. The volunteers weren’t too impressed with the dumplings, but they seemed to go down well with the visitors.

Biscuits, juice, coffee and tea were also to hand, as was bread to mop up the pie juice.

Despite serving 60, the rush at the beginning meant that we escaped early. Not bad for a nights work.