Tis the season to be merry - #2

Nikki's works' do migrated, as it does, to a different hotel this year, only this time to one we'd used before, three years ago: the Worsley Marriott. We were quite happy with this, as it's barely a 20-minute drive from home and we remembered how good the breakfasts are there. A strange thing to concentrate on when you're supposedly going there for a Christmas do, you might think, and I couldn't possibly comment. Except to say that Christmas dos are all too often much of a muchness, but a good breakfast is beyond price.

Anyway we had a relaxed start to the day - two pots of coffee and lots of 'puter time - and took a leisurely drive over there after a late breakfast, arriving around 3pm, checking in and making our way to the Chimney Bar.

Since our last visit the rooms have all been refurbished and are now very comfortably appointed, with a massive bed, good choice of TV channels and a well-equipped bathroom. Nice touch that the room's lobby had a motion-activated light too, which came on as soon as we opened the door and remained on long enough to find the other light switches.

A couple of Nikki's colleagues were already waiting for us in the bar so we treated ourselves to a sandwich lunch and a couple of beers, soaking up the atmosphere and generally relaxing. Soon it was time to return to the room and put on our posh duds, joining the rest of the company for a pre-dinner drink before walking through to the main restaurant area for dinner.

It's impressive how a hotel restaurant can serve up several hundred meals and not only have them all still hot when they reach the table, but also looking appealing and appetising. It's not always the case, but the Marriott did us proud. Tomato soup with roasted red pepper, turkey dinner with all the usual trimmings, and Christmas pud in brandy sauce for me, while Nikki had the same, but branched out to the chocolate mousse for dessert. If I was being uber-picky I'd say the roast potatoes were a bit on the hard side (Nikki reckoned they'd been roasted in advance and then microwaved too long), but other than that in mass catering terms the meal was very nice.

We spent a frustrating couple of hours trying to dodge the result of the X Factor final - the DJ insisting that he would bring us news as soon as he got it! Eek! - before retiring to bed at a far too sensible 11.30pm. Don't know whether the credit crunch is biting, or there's been a general realisation that it's crazy to stay up until the small hours getting drunk at hotel bar prices, but the party area was distinctly less busy when we went to bed than in previous years.

Having retired early and only consumed 4 or 5 drinks each, we were (as usual) awake long before dawn, and hence the first to arrive for breakfast almost on the dot of 7am. The breakfast staff concealed their surprise very well at seeing someone awake at that hour after a Christmas party, and the egg chef cooked me up two perfect fried eggs to go with the excellent sausage, hash browns, beans, fried slice, juice, coffee and toast, after which we checked out and arrived back home around quarter to nine! Very civilised and a perfect time to make another pot of coffee and settle back to watch our unspoiled recording of the X Factor. It was a close call, but we made it!