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May. 12th, 2007 04:55 pmLast night was the Dinner in honour of Sue as outgoing mayor of Winchester. To be honest another big formal do was the last thing I was in the mood for. But at least Sue was pleased to see me as always, and Maria was on our table - and my mother made sure I got Maria next to me. We were meant to have John and Sheila from Southampton on our table too, but I seemed to remember them telling us on Thursday that they wouldn't be coming. Sure enough, they didn't. I joked to Maria "That's an extra meal each for you and me." We all moved a bit further apart to close the gap, necessitating much fiddling about with the plates, cutlery and glasses.
The food was delicious as usual - smoked salmon around cream cheese with avocado; tournados of beef; passion fruit tart - but very filling, then when the cheeseboard was brought round I was last to get it and promptly took advantage of that by carving myself a doorstep-sized wedge of Italian blue. I'd overreached myself a little; being already pretty full from the dinner I struggled a bit to finish all the block of cheese, but managed it, and still had room for a Belgian chocolate truffle. Two, in fact, as with John and Sheila away, and Warwick from Basingstoke being diabetic, there were nine truffles for six of us, and Maria and I both volunteered to have an extra one. Very rich. We were all absolutely stuffed by the end.
Sue gave a very nice, and concise, speech as outgoing Mayor, but the representative of her charity and the Councillor chosen to 'say a few words' to round off the evening both went on a bit. As we said goodbye, Sue and I hugged and kissed intensely, and she made it clear that keeping in touch with all the rest of the 2006 Chain Gang was important to her - and she was looking forward to seeing me again at the reunions. That was rather nice.
This morning was my mother's last Coffee Morning at the Town Hall. So yet again it was humping duty for me, but I did at least have some fresh books donated by various friends of the parents (I'd made it clear I didn't want to stand there with nothing on my stall except all the old crap that the punters had rejected five times already). I also had copies of our compilation of poems from the poetry box to sell. I shifted a dozen of those over the course of the morning; the old infirm lady who always buys lots of the Mills and Boons came along and purchased ten (I told her carer "She's one of my best customers"); and several of my other books also sold. I ended up taking £23 in all. The lady whose name I sadly don't know, but who's always at this type of event trying to flog me tickets to music festivals, and her friend bought a copy of the poetry book each, then, as two of the poems are by me, they asked me to sign the books on the pages where my poems were. I did, and pointed out Sarah, on the Fairtrade stall, and Julia, who was browsing around, both of whom also had poems in the book, so the two ladies went and got their autographs too. Nice to be famous :D
After the coffee morning wound down, it was time to hump my unsold stock back downstairs and wait in the foyer while my mother did a photocall in the Mayor's Parlour with the St John Ambulance crew. Pete was in the keepers' office watching the Spanish Grand Prix qualifier: he said to me "You're not a Grand Prix junkie, then?" I confessed I haven't watched F1 for ages.
Home just in time for Leeds v Wigan in the Challenge Cup on telly.
The food was delicious as usual - smoked salmon around cream cheese with avocado; tournados of beef; passion fruit tart - but very filling, then when the cheeseboard was brought round I was last to get it and promptly took advantage of that by carving myself a doorstep-sized wedge of Italian blue. I'd overreached myself a little; being already pretty full from the dinner I struggled a bit to finish all the block of cheese, but managed it, and still had room for a Belgian chocolate truffle. Two, in fact, as with John and Sheila away, and Warwick from Basingstoke being diabetic, there were nine truffles for six of us, and Maria and I both volunteered to have an extra one. Very rich. We were all absolutely stuffed by the end.
Sue gave a very nice, and concise, speech as outgoing Mayor, but the representative of her charity and the Councillor chosen to 'say a few words' to round off the evening both went on a bit. As we said goodbye, Sue and I hugged and kissed intensely, and she made it clear that keeping in touch with all the rest of the 2006 Chain Gang was important to her - and she was looking forward to seeing me again at the reunions. That was rather nice.
This morning was my mother's last Coffee Morning at the Town Hall. So yet again it was humping duty for me, but I did at least have some fresh books donated by various friends of the parents (I'd made it clear I didn't want to stand there with nothing on my stall except all the old crap that the punters had rejected five times already). I also had copies of our compilation of poems from the poetry box to sell. I shifted a dozen of those over the course of the morning; the old infirm lady who always buys lots of the Mills and Boons came along and purchased ten (I told her carer "She's one of my best customers"); and several of my other books also sold. I ended up taking £23 in all. The lady whose name I sadly don't know, but who's always at this type of event trying to flog me tickets to music festivals, and her friend bought a copy of the poetry book each, then, as two of the poems are by me, they asked me to sign the books on the pages where my poems were. I did, and pointed out Sarah, on the Fairtrade stall, and Julia, who was browsing around, both of whom also had poems in the book, so the two ladies went and got their autographs too. Nice to be famous :D
After the coffee morning wound down, it was time to hump my unsold stock back downstairs and wait in the foyer while my mother did a photocall in the Mayor's Parlour with the St John Ambulance crew. Pete was in the keepers' office watching the Spanish Grand Prix qualifier: he said to me "You're not a Grand Prix junkie, then?" I confessed I haven't watched F1 for ages.
Home just in time for Leeds v Wigan in the Challenge Cup on telly.
