Venue and Accomodation Hunting

I have two days holiday booked, on a use them or loose them basis, and they have come in very handy.

Without going into detail, as it's all very hush, hush at present, I have been roped in to help a committee find a venue, entertainment and accommodation for a Dinner Dance for 100 people in 2012

I spend all day yesterday on the Internet, making telephone calls and doing costings. Eliminating some venues, adding others to the mix, and arranging appointments for today to visit and meet with the short listed possibles

I picked Sally-Ann up very early, and we headed off for the first appointment..... No I can't tell you where, or what for! This makes my post quite difficult to write LOL

Our first 3 stops were to look at accommodation in the form of camp sites and chalets, and also a barn conversion for the possible Dinner Dance

The camp site was fab! They have done the sort of thing we are needing before, and can accommodate a LOT of people and tents.

Next was the barn conversion - Oh dear! Very basic! Not to the standard we were expecting or wanted and an instant No!

Then onto the chalet/cottages. The people who ran this place were fantastic, and handed over the keys for an empty unit, and just left us to our own devices to explore and establish how appropriate it would be.

With 120 units, that hold between 2 and 6 people in each, we could fill the place without trouble.... did I mention that there would be possibly 1500 people minimum involved the day after the dinner dance!

Superb - not yet midday, and we have the camp site and chalets sorted already!

Our next destination was about 20 minutes away so we headed off, with the sun shining on our heads, and it was now warm enough for the lid to be down on the car, the blue skies sent our spirits soaring....

We had a very productive meeting at our favoured venue, and were able to talk menu's and seating arrangements. Now it was a case of going back to the committee and offering them a proposal for the evening and weekend as we saw it.

Before leaving the area we visited a local hotel, on spec, and had a show around and were able to see bedrooms to establish if we could also offer this as accommodation for an alternative.

I finally dropped Sally-Ann home just before 5pm, and despite the long day of meetings and driving, we were very happy with the outcome, and very excited with what we had arrived at.... fingers crossed that it would be approved of.....

More cryptic posts to come no doubt...

Pastures New...

My lovely friend and colleague left us on Monday for pastures new.

Not only has she she been there for us in her work capacity as our nurse, but she has been a wonderful friend and a shoulder for all of us to cry on at some time or another.

She received some terrible news a short while ago, just as she was about to leave us, and so we wanted to show her how much she means to us, and that we are all there for her, when she is ready to call on us.

We all met at the Tyringham Arms, not far from St Ives. The place had just been taken over by another ex work colleague, and as it was not far for us all to go, we decided to land on him and check out how they were doing.

After a little cheekiness from us all, and a fair bit of laughing and joking, we all settled down to a really fabulous meal.

These pictures don't show all of those who were there for Lorna's leaving party, but even so, I think you can see what a great time we all had.

We shall really miss you Lorna, but don't worry, we have the next night out planned already!

Watch out Tyringham Arms, we shall be returning!

City of Lights Spectacular

Tonight we headed on into Truro, with our friend Alison to watch the festival of lanterns - which I thought was going to be school kiddies, singing Christmas hymns and carrying paper lanterns - ow wrong I was!
The paper lanterns were incredible - with mermaids, elephants, horses, storms in teacups, pirate ships - all huge and completely amazing....

I started taking photo's and couldn't stop - unfortunately I've only added about 20 of the 60 odd that I took, but I had to show how wonderful the parade was!

This storm in a teacup was really inspired!

After the main parade it was time for the Christmas lights to be switched on

After this the parade headed off towards Lemon Quay, so we headed towards the cathedral as we knew it would all end there.

We were really lucky - the tree lights had been switched on as a test, so we were able to get some crafty shots of them without loads of people

We took the chance to get a picture together, Alison seemed to think she looked like a little gnome - lucky her - I'm the marshmallow man from Ghostbusters!

We headed off to grab a coffee at the nearby Thornton's and when we got back, all of the 'animals' were around the Christmas tree, so we had a chance to get up close and personal with them

This horse was incredible, the puppeteer got the head movements perfectly

but my favourite was the Elephant - so lovely

Having seen all that we could we headed back to grab the bus back to the park and ride. The queue was long..... 3/4 mile long! However, everyone was in good spirits after such a nice night, and the bus drivers played a blinder, and I don't think we waited any longer that 20 minutes.

A fantastic night - the organisers should be congratulated!

Gothic Gastronomy in The Castle

It was a dark and stormy night.

The wind was at gale force and the rain lashing down so hard it bounced off the floor as it hit and reached back up into the heavens.

And we were booked at the Carn Brea Castle Restaurant, one of the highest points in Cornwall, to go for a meal with friends.

As we arrived, the wind whipped around our bodies, trying to carry us away with it, but we were having none of that! We were here to enjoy an unusual night out, and were really looking forward to it.

After trying our camera's on just about every setting, Alison and I finally managed to get a couple of great, moody shots of the Castle from our parking spot just below it..... this is to be our haven and eatery for the evening.

We were welcomed by Mr Sawahla, the owner and our host for the evening, and walked up some winding steps, dripping with rain water that had seeped through the granite walls, adding to the atmosphere.

There is no electricity in this most unusual restaurant, everything is lit by candle, making for a really fantastic atmosphere, especially with the increasing wind and rain outside.

Again, us girlies fiddled with our camera settings and found a suitable one to give us nice bright pictures, and did the compulsory couples posing pictures....

Firstly Alison and Paul...

and then Paul and I....

Mr Sawahla took our food orders, cranked up the Jordonian music and pulled out his traditional drum, and began tapping away to the music.....

The rhythm was great and got us all clapping along and wondering how on earth such a huge noise came from such a small piece of kit

It was then our turn, and it slowly got passed around for us all to have a go, some of us with better results than others

Paul, having stated that he didn't think he could do it, actually got really into it and looks a treat with his big cheeky smiles.....

I thought I'd have to fight him for my go LOL

It was great fun

Our meals arrived, and were amazing - Alison and I had the Jordonian spiced Lamb kebabs on a bed of rice with yoghurt dip and salad...... It was nothing like we expected (ie basically cubes of meat on skewers) it was actually about 8 lamb steaks on the bone marinated in spice - I've never eaten so much meat in one meal in my life!

The boys had steaks - once cooked in a whisky marinate, the other in a pomegranate sauce.

We followed all of this up with a plate of baklava - loads of little sample pieces for us to all pick at.

Absolutely fantastic.

Well worth a visit, and we will certainly be going again - YUM!

One Night of Queen

It's JB's Birthday on the 3rd of July, she'll be 15, and as she loves Queen we thought what better than to go see a tribute band.... Gary Mullen and The Works were playing One Night of Queen at the Hall for Cornwall, so we booked it!

We arrived inplenty of time, and found our seats....

Then sat back and enjoyed a first class show....

He had us all up on our feet dancing...

This guy is fantastic - if we closed our eyes it could have been Freddie Mercury on the stage!