If you are going on any kind of journey in the very near future then contact me and make sure I am not travelling at the same time. At the moment I am a bit of a travel disaster area.
Last Saturday I had a lovely job as Toastmaster at a cocktail party celebrating the wedding of Anthony and Hannah at the Radison Edwardian Hotel, near Heathrow. Hannah is English and Anthony is Asian. They were married a couple of weeks ago and had been on honeymoon. The wedding had been a western affair and now Anthony's parents threw a party in lieu of the Asian wedding ceremony. The catering was by Madhu's and was, as ever, excellent and was all overseen by the peerless Abhi, a delightful event.
Anyway, back to the travel disaster.
As ever I set out nice and early - thankfully. There was an horrendous accident not too far in front of me on the M1. The motorway was closed and I was sat there for nearly 90 minutes as my arrival time drew closer and closer. In the end I decided to change into my Toastmaster uniform on the carriageway.
This was much to the amusement of the travellers similarly stranded. Even managed to give out a few cards - never been known to miss an opportunity!
However this was not all. My access to the M25 was closed for my return journey, as was the motorweay around Maidenhead. Later in the week I was stuck on the A50 at Stoke on my way to Lancashire when therer was an incident with a lorry and there was even worse news on the rturn journey. The M6 was almost at a standstill and the A50 again was closed because of accidents. NIGHTMARE. Still I managed to get to my jobs and home again in one piece.
And so to Heidi and Alastair on Sunday.
A supremely well-organised wedding and what fun! During the service the guests were all singing along to one of my favourite Sinatra songs...
Newstead was a typical council run venue and Shottle was superb. People really did seem to like the stilt-walking Toastmaster on their arrival. Hopefully there will be a few pictures of this somewhat bizarre occurrence soon. I know that Becky from the excellent Butterworth Photography took a few. The wedding was fun in so many ways, not least for the surprises the bride and bridegroom kept springing on each other. I think Heidi's video was the winner though!
And so on to last night's job. The job itself was all pretty straightforward. The Lincoln and South Lincolnshire Society of Chartered Accountants are regular customers, but the big thing last night was the venue.
Doddington Hall in Lincolnshire is in itself a stunning building.
and well worth a visit. However they have just opened a purpose built venue for weddings and meetings. The venue is self-contained and really pleasant and the staff, fronted by Justine and Helen were excellent. Friendly and efficient. There is also some really pleasant accomodation attached. The place has a lot going for it.
Well, that's almost it for now. The next week is being spent with my head down swotting for my Toastmaster exam next Sunday in London. Really quite nervous about this.
Anyway, that's about it for this week. More soon!
Live Long And Be Toastmastered
