Soup lunch season opens at Wesley

The Wesley roof appeal's monthly soup lunch began on Wednesday in a church hall measuring twenty seven degrees. The date was fixed at the March planning meeting, and the organisers saw no reason to let summer interfere with a calendar that had already been minuted.

Four soups were offered. Mrs Vera Stubbins's cream of tomato went first, as it always does. The minestrone and the leek and potato held their own, and there was a chilled cucumber soup contributed by Mrs Sylvia Ferris, newly returned from a coach tour of Spain and keen to share what she had learned there.

The cucumber divided the room. Several diners praised it as refreshing. Others took the view that a soup served cold is not a soup at all but a salad that has lost its nerve. The question generated more discussion than the roof itself and has been referred to the September meeting.

The lunch raised £87 for the appeal, and the sponsor-a-slate book in the vestry gained four new names, three of them legible. The treasurer describes the running total as encouraging, provided it is not read alongside the £62,000.

The next lunch is on Wednesday 16 September, which is also the month of the appeal's sponsored silence. It is expected to be a quieter affair.