For the first meeting of the new year our speaker was Duncan Armour who together with his wife Deborah had recently travelled to Madagascar or as it is sometimes referred to as 'The Eighth Continent'.

If you want to photo-graph wildlife then this is clearly a place to consider given that it is home to so many different species that are found nowhere else on Earth. Duncan's talk also encompassed the history, geography and people of this vast island (1000 miles long and 350 miles wide) and its unique position after the Earth's continents were rearranged millions of years ago. In a large number of images we were shown a whole host of 'Madagascan' species - dancing lemurs, the weirdly-shaped baobab trees, green pigeons and other rare and often endangered species.

Laced with Madagascan sayings and superstitions this was a fascinating insight into a part of the world and its culture that probably many of us were unaware of and should any of us venture there by the appropriately named 'Mad' airline we now know it's very bad luck to pass an egg to anyone and to take with us a full camera cleaning kit to combat both the dust and the humidity. Oh, and to check your boots in the morning in case a scorpion has crawled in overnight.