Flowery

The conference dinner is one of the highlights of the week. For the third year, we returned to Church House. The Assembly Hall was all dressed up, with the obligatory Christmas trees on stage and Christmas Crackers on all tables. Of course there were last minutes issues to deal with and I literally got changed into another dress and put on another pair of shoes in just one minute... But then it was all over to Richard's lovely catering team. And I think I saw him smile and even laugh for the first time, too - a truly special night! :-)

Last year, I got a special mention during the welcome as well as after dinner speech. And this year, I got a big thank you as well as the most beautiful and massive bouquet of flowers EVER. And I was very grateful that I managed not to fall over when walking on stage. This maybe doesn't sound like much, but the fact that D went out personally to buy the flowers and then got my colleagues to hide them from me (I honestly did not see this coming), really means a lot to me.

I've been working closely with D for two years now. During dinner, he confessed that at the start, he wasn't exactly looking forward to working with me, as he thought I was always very/too serious and standoffish. I hadn't been looking forward to working with him either (for different reasons) - and while it was hard work at times, I did really enjoy it. I suppose it helps that we usually share the same views. And the fact that I was able to tell him just that is testament to how well we got on in the end. Having low expectations may have been the key to the successful collaboration :-)

the photo honestly doesn't capture just how big and beautiful this bouquet is!!!
quite a task to get it home on the tube, too

My carefully selected gobos for the ceiling in the Assembly Hall