I asked for a half day on Friday as I was being picked up at 5.00 to travel to York where I was staying in a hotel with the Children`s Rights team before the event on Saturday at Flamingoland. On my way home to pack an overnight bag, I rummaged through my handbag for my door keys. Not there, I`d forgotten to pick them up from the bench. Shit, I`d have to find somewhere to go till D and G came in from work, what a waste of a half day, but all was not lost, discovered that G was on a day leave and was at home. He was dog sitting his girlfriend`s sister`s poodle. It charged at the patio door as I arrived as if I was the intruder. Intending to pack a few items, but G announces he needs to go to Wickes for plaster. Leaves Lola with me for an hour, having warned me not to go near her face as she`d been eating cat shit from the garden.
Didn`t get to York until 8.00 and left our bags at reception to go straight through for evening meal, fabulous food and company. I was shown to my room by a member of hotel staff, I noticed that he slid a card into a holder on the wall as he was talking. He mentioned that I could ring 0 if I needed anything, that the bathroom was up the spiral stair, removed his card, then left. I faffed around for a bit, then decided to go up the iron staircase to the bathroom, had only been up there a minute and all of the lights went out. Pitch black, and I mean totally coal type black. I had visions of falling down the stair well as I held my arms out in front of me inching towards the banister. Made i down the stairs and realised that hotel blokey had activated the lights with the card he`d used to gain entry into the room. Now the challenge was to make my way to the bedside drawers to find the card and scale the wall to place it into the holder. Problem solved. Not being too used to posh hotels, he could have explained that, what if I`d been on my way down the frigging things when the light went out!!
I must have woken up around 4.00, lying on my back and completely disorientated, beamed in on the hole in the ceiling where the spiral stair disappeared into and nearly passed out with fright.
We got to the site around 7.30 amd began setting up ready for the kids to arrive. Thankfully there were no balloons to blow up with the aid of a gas bottle this year. My thoughts went back to the first event I worked at. The first gas bottle ran out, B asked if anyone knew how to switch, M said that he did, but he didn`t, he loosened the key, an ear splitting wheeeeeeeeeee, he dropped the bottle and legged it, we all did the same splitting to the four winds. Brave little B crawled towards it on her tummy and turned it off. I thought that my heart was about to burst through my chest. A high wind got up and we could hear fellow workers shouting for help as their tent was blowing away.It was a good laugh...afterwards.
The kids had a great time, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the animals, African dancers etc. Everything went smoothly this year, apart from going where no man had gone before..... in a spiral fashion.
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