I am on leave today because I knew that if I drank more than three units of alcohol yesterday then I'd be incapable of leaving the bed before 8:11am, let alone do a whole day's work. Anyway, I digress (as usual!) - you'll undoubtedly want to know about yesterday's work Christmas lunch, won't you? Well, we went early, Monday, 8th December to be exact and our sitting was at 11:30am - 'why so early?' you may enquire - it was very cheap and I arranged it myself, thus saving every diner the princely sum of £10, which is no mean feat in these financially challenged times.
I arrived at the restaurant, which was located thirteen minutes' walk away from the office and called
'Mon Cherie Amour', probably after the great Stevie Wonder's chart hit. That said, apart from a solitary harmonica encased in a perspex box affixed to the wall, there was no other memorabilia of the former Motown legend, well I suppose there are two if you count them using that particular track as the hold music on their telephone system. The tablecloths were red and faded and none of the chairs matched - their only concession to the festive season was a balding, undecorated tree sitting sadly in the corner and various sprigs of mistletoe hung above every table. A man shuffled out of the rear of the restaurant who closely resembled Herman Munster and proceeded to take the wine order which was four bottles of their cheapest vin de table. They'd had a whip round at work last week and amassed £48.76 towards the drinks bill.
At 11:25 a solitary man and his three-legged dog came in and was shown to a corner table. My team arrived at 11:33 and sat down at the table, which had to be steadied with a coaster advertising Benson and Hedges. My team consists of eight people: William 'Billy' Boggis, the team leader (Grade 6) - a bluff, but kind man who enjoyed playing gin rummy and rollerblading during the summer months; Sally Tippings (Grade 7), a shy mousy woman with a huge knowledge of Neil Diamond's life and career; Cantana Mutanda (Grade 7), a friendly tecchie guy with a deep love of Dr Who; Nigel Noggin-Smythe (Faststream), a highly ambitious Oxford graduate who played the violin to concert standard; Roger Bannister, (HEO), a huge (in both senses of the word) comedy fan who laughs at absolutely everything; Catherine Hill (HEO) a rather lazy person in my opinion who'd much rather sit and read romantic novels during the lunch hour than do any work (miow!) there is also Colin Sudbury-Majors, but he doesn't really attend social events.
There were a few complaints about the colour of the prawn cocktail and that the pate looked as though a cat had vomited it out three minutes prior to plating, but generally the fact that all of my brussels sprouts pinged across the table at Nigel were somewhat overlooked. I some ways I envied Sally who was sat opposite the spare place, I thought I noticed her checking her phone at various intervals, but I could have been wrong. Roger, who was seated on my left was boring me senseless with his continual comedy quotes and allegedly amusing anecdotes. Nigel was conversing with Billy about his Stradivarius and how he had to wrest it from another musician's grasp during a pre-concert warm up at the Royal Albert Hall last year. Generally, the whole thing was boring until Sally suddenly flipped, grabbed two half-empty bottles from the table and fled from the restaurant. Oh dear.