I'll think of a good title later

For Christmas my company gave each of its employees a bottle of wine.

On Friday I knocked off work early in order to attend my other half's end of year party. We met at her house, sorted out our things & drove straight to the train station.

While waiting for the 2.30 train to London I told Nix that I would try my hardest to look respectable & not to show her up in front of her colleagues. She replied that she didn't care what I looked like as long as I didn't wear my tatty trainers to the party.

After going back to her house & picking up my shoes we finally caught the 4.00 train to the city & arrived in Greenwich at around 5.30.

We found our hotel which was kindly paid for by the company. While Nicky showered I amused myself by playing with all the different buttons in the room, I particularly enjoyed the electronic safe. I was showered & dressed before Nix could finish applying her warpaint.

Nicky doesn't often do the girly stuff. Surprisingly when she puts on her high heels she stands 7ft tall.

We went down to the lobby around 7ish where I got to meet some of Nicky's coworkers while they were waiting for taxis. Being country bumpkins we decided to walk to the venue & naturally got there first. There being here (click the thumbnail for enlarged goodness):



The Royal Naval College in Greenwich (also known as Greenwich Hospital). The picture above is a small snapshot of a very impressive group of buildings that I had no idea even existed before. We followed a number of tuxedos into a reception hall which was apparently off limits unless you were holding a glass of champagne.

Here I spent about an hour being introduced to more of Nicky's colleagues who were working hard trying to identify the faceless voices from the London & French ends of the company plus the rep from up & down the country.

All the while milling around the party goers were waiters with trays of h'orderves (French for 'unidentifiable snack'). Miraculously I succeeded in h'ordiving a number of times without getting caught with an introduction mid munch once. Also mingling amongst the crowd were deadly assasins clad in black armed with a bottle of champagne. They seemed to have a ghost like quality to them because for the most part they were completely ignored by many of the guests. Some people would simply hold their glass out to the side with their face turned away & talking to someone else while the waiter filled their flute in complete anonymity which I found disheartening.

To me a person is a person & the very least you can do is acknowledge their existance. Service staff or your own mother, you say please, thankyou & look at the person as you do so when they do something for you. On the flipside it seems that the briefest eyecontact with a waiter is a request for a refill.

When it was time to make our way to dinner I was already pretty drunk.

In fact later photographic evidence shows that they were indeed ghosts.

We all made our way down through a corridoor with low arches & many alcoves each containing a simple & immaculate display of some of the company's brands.



As we walked Nicky pointed out the ones that I had already tasted & commented on some of her insider knowledge of others. I noticed pretty much everyone took an interest in the displays. If your marketing can grab the attention of your own employees who work with the product day in & day out then it will work on anybody. I also noticed the sense of pride the displays seemed to instill in the employees. Being proud of what you do is priceless. & an entire world apart from the culture at my own company.

At the end of the corridoor we climbed a flight of stone steps to a landing where groups of people gathered around easels supporting notices of the seating arrangements. After finding our positions (They even spelt my name correctly!) we doubled back on ourselves & climbed another set of steps up into the magnificent Painted Hall (again click for bigness):



That was impressive enough for me, but then you look up:



We spent a lot of time agog gazing up at the paintings. The ceiling towered far overhead & unfortunately there was nowhere to get a closer look at the details. The hall is open to the public, if you ever go to visit you won't regret taking a small pair of binoculars.

We found our table named after Catherine of Aragon (Henry VIII's first wife, not Viggo Mortensen's muse as I first thought) all laid out with candelabras, a veritable Swiss Army knife worth of cutlery (like many people of my generation though, I remembered that particular episode of Grange Hill that explained all that so I was unfazed) & a host of different glasses - a different wine for each couse of the meal, another for pink champagne & another for a cognac to end with.

We took our seats, employees down one side of the table & the 'hangers on' on the other. My early concerns as to why us freeloaders were being grouped together proved unfounded. I was sat between Rebecca & Nick, who were both very friendly & entertaining throughout the evening.



Nicky & I are the second from the front. You'll notice that there is evidence that Nick & I were the ones ensuring nothing went to waste. Everyone of those plates being carried by that waitress behind me went through us.

The meal was fantastic, to start we had caramelised onions on some sort of nougat base with some green leafy things & an unknown brown sauce which I could have happily munched on all night accompanied with wine. The we had a lamb cutlet with a boulangere of potatoes (I found no trace of French bread but it was delicious anyway) accompanied with more wine, then to finish we each had a selection of almost bite size rum flavoured desserts. There were three to a plate & I seemed to be the only person on the table that liked all three kinds so I ended up eating bloody hundreds of the things. Accompanied with more wine. & pink champagne. As the meal drew to a close most people indulged in the foulness of coffee while Rebecca & I monopolised the chocolates accompanied by some cognac.

After dinner there was an entertaining speech by the company MD who talked a bit about the history of the hall & the company, plus a few presentations of bouquets. Then the waiting staff attempted to encourage the guests who had all succumbed to the dangers of drinking while sitting down to make their way back to the reception hall for more drinks & dancing.

This time the hall was only open to people drinking mojitos ("I don't think it's a gay drink" /Brian), a cocktail of rum, lime juice, sugar & mint. There was also a free bar available to really finish everyone off.

I've never seen so much alcohol. & I've been to a *lot* of juggling festivals.

We danced the night away to a fantastic band where I picked up a number of puncture wounds from stiletto heels. Sadly I can't remember the name of the group but they were great:



It was a really amazing night, I couldn't believe it was over so quickly. Despite feeling totally out of my depth & out of place being surrounded by so much extravagance I never once felt unwelcome or uncomfortable. We staggered back to the hotel (again beating most of the people who got taxis) & joined a sit in protest at the bar who refused to serve us all (to be fair if I was the hotel manager I wouldn't have served us either!). I can't remember when exactly we called it a night. Nicky & I helped eachother back to our room having a soul searching conversation with the elevator on the way & fell into bed.