Christmas Do. (part 2)

Not a bad night at the De Vere hotel, Daresbury last night (ooh, it do sound posh don't it?). A very nice room, after our complementary upgrade to an Executive King suite (that's a bigger bed to you and me, and very comfortable it was too) caused by the fact they'd over-booked the Christmas do in the "Alice Room" (the whole place has a Lewis Carroll theme) and had to bump us into a smaller side room instead.

OK, the decorations weren't up to much - a single Christmas tree plonked into one corner - and the dance floor was a little smaller, but it didn't affect the food and drink ;o)

We arrived as usual mid-afternoon and spent a pleasant couple of hours sipping drinks, chatting with Nikki's colleagues and, since the diet was once again on hold for the day, tucking into a plate of club sandwiches and chips. This is the best part of the event for me. The meal is just like any other mass-catered Christmas meal, the disco holds no interest whatever and the dinner conversation can be a bit hit and miss, but the afternoon session is the height of civilisation. Comfy seats, a warm lounge, beer (or, in this case, Magner's cider since the draught beer selection on offer was uniformly awful) and pleasant chat. I love it.

We repaired to our room to freshen up around 6 o'clock and returned, showered, shaved (that's just me doing the shaving) and togged up, to the bar for a pre-dinner drinkie around 6.30.

I carried my third pint of Magners of the day into dinner with me and was immediately offered another by Nikki's manager. You can't say no can you? It would be rude. I'd ordered a rather nice salmon roulade to start and a traditional Christmas dinner, which was fine as mass catering goes apart from the sprouts which were like bullets.

The pud was a bit disappointing though. One of those occasions where you stare longingly at what someone else has ordered (in this case the strawberry pavlova) because your own choice is not quite all that (chocolate tart). The coffee was piss-poor too. I don't think I've *ever* had a good cup of coffee in a hotel.

With crackers pulled, hats put on and taken off, balloons blown up and shot across the room and the disco in full swing I began to flag a bit. I was surprised to discover it was already almost 1am so I made my excuses. Nikki was enjoying the disco too much to want to leave just yet, but I was more than ready to sample the delights of the king bed and watch enough snooker to send me to sleep. That is, about 3 minutes' worth.