Thursday was our work awayday. I knew in advance I would hate it - you just know it when everyone tells you, “How much you will love it.” And they seem to think that being secretive about what it is you’ll be doing somehow makes it more exciting.
So, end of last week I spoke to one of the organisers. “I really don’t *do* outdoors, so I am not going to come.” To be fair, they came up trumps! There were four of us didn’t do it in the end. Well, we did the morning bit, which was just us put on a bus to the middle of nowhere, and we sat and did a quiz. Then we had lunch, and everyone else got back on the bus, and I could see all the life preservers, and helmets being packed with them. Thinking, “God, I am so glad I am not doing this, I would so hate it.”
I went back in a car, to the hotel where the evening events were planned. With a day pass to the gym and swimming pool/spa.
What fun! 45 minutes in the gym, then into my cossie for some lengths (fnaar fnaar). One of my colleagues, known as Baby for his youth, had been promising to join me in the jacuzzi all week. I told him he was only allowed if he wore speedos.
I was swimming along, and I hear my name called out. There was Baby. Bastard. Knee lengths shorts. He is grinning at me, “Look, they have speedo written down the side, I promised you speedos.” “But I was expecting LELI style speedos, what a disappointment.”
Sat chatting in the jacuzzi for a while, then I went into the steam room, then the sauna.
Finally got dressed and in the bar for 4 o’clock. And how good am I? My first two drinks were water.
Hmmm. My next 5 were double vodka and cokes.
I was hammered by the time everyone else arrived - all wet, muddy and hurting. They had been walking up and down rocks, jumping into waterfalls, getting soaked and scared. I am so glad I didn’t go.
Even better was that drinking in the hotel they are too polite to let you pay as you go, so me and Baby, joined by S a little later, had not yet paid for a drink by the time they all started to arrive. One of the big bosses walked in. “Oh, I think we should pay for the bar tab on the corporate card.” Well, I wasn’t going to say no was I? Not at £7.30 a drink.
The evening was great fun. More booze on the table, including wine, beer and alcopops. The evening began on a sad note, where we all raised a glass to T, the colleague who died. I *think* there were a lot of tears. I don’t know, I couldn’t see through mine. Then we all got down to some serious partying (hell, T was the biggest partier we all knew).
There were cowboy hats for the men, bands with jewels and feathers for the women.
That’s my little LELI in the blue shirt, hiding behind the number 5.
Also, one guy per table got to be Elvis.
I danced my socks off. I like to think I didn’t drink too much more, but the guy I was sat next to kept filling my glass before I had got halfway down, so it was impossible to tell. I do remember ordering two pints of water from the bar, and I think this may have saved me from total hell.
Yesterday was, instead, just a little bit of hell. Bad head, not crawling out of bed to get dressed until 3.30 in the afternoon. Good job I had booked the day off! Seems some people did something similar, only they hadn’t booked it off.
