The Morning After

Good Morning!

You know this is going to be the second old day I've had since I've been here! Two in Nine months now that's a great thing! More than anything I think it was the fact I was on my feet all day yesterday.

A general time frame of the day went something along the lines of getting into the kitchen at 7:55am. At 11am we took a walk to the Conference room and then back into the kitchen. Worked right through guests lunch and sat down for half an hour around 2pm. From there it was straight working right through until 6:50pm when I dash upstairs and showered and changed to be back down at 7:03pm. At around 7:20 I decided it was time to sit down and have a cry which was then followed by a 7 minute run through of my speech. 8:09pm I sat down and ate some of the food I'd spent all day making. The formalities started at 8:45pm and come 9pm I got up for my speech. The formalities were over by 9:45pm. The kitchen was locked and closed and clean by 11:15pm at which point I went upstairs.

That in a nutshell was my anniversary day!!

But it wasn't so bad. The morning was fine but Maria's brother in law or who ever it was never showed up so the afternoon was a complete nightmare. Maria made Breanne cry. We were cooking right up until it was time to take a shower. However the final product was great and there was a truck load of food and everyone liked it so that's the main thing.

The great laugh of the day came when Maria was talking about the t-shirts we had on. She said they were really nice because they were fitted and they made us look sexy because we were all young women blah blah blah and then something came up about Breanne dressing like an old woman. The conversation then went on about the shirts and Maria declares "I didn't realise Doreen had such big tits". Yep, the anniversary shirts summed up by the cook. We just roared out laughing and everyone heard it! I'm not sure those words have reached Doreen yet, but I'm sure she'd see the funny side to it.

I think we had about 110 people come through last night. There were people everywhere. Former staff, Guiding people, committee people, American Pax Friends, Camden Council people - the works. Even Glen from next door came but he said Robbie was out of town.

Now, the speech. I'd rehearsed it many times and I didn't get so emotional in the practice runs!! I sort of lost the hold on my emotions towards the end. Janis Whitber ended up holding my hand just to calm me a little. I made it through though and I think I had everyone in the room in tears. Three left because they were like howling! I even had Jacquie come up afterwards and tell me she doesn't get emotional about things, but that made her cry. I don't actually remember giving it!! I remember walking up to the mike and I remember the last paragraph but aside from that the only thing I can remember is me telling myself not to look at Doreen and I can't remember why!

Some of the American ladies want copies and apparently it's being published somewhere...one of the old volunteers, Beryl I think, asked if I was going to make a living as a writer. So a fair few mixed responses!

I have lots of photos, well as many as possible to take but we're going to compile a CD of all the photos from staff camera's so that everyone can have an overview of what went on for the day.

I'm glad the parcel arrived yesterday!! I was hoping it would arrive on the 15th!! Do the shirts fit everyone, because if not I can change them for the right size. It was kinda hard figuring out who would fit into what! The two other things should arrive in the next couple of days. I think one was a letter and the other will be photos.

The Commonwealth Games started yesterday. My home town put on a great show apparently. I'm hoping one of the relatives taped it for me or something!

The Pax Lodge Team meeting starts today and ends on Saturday I think. So if the decision about Programme Assistant has been made, this will be the time when its announced. We shall see what the next few days bring.

Until next Time,

Rachael