After leaving Dundee, I started my events run first up in Scotland. St. Andrews hosted my first week long event where myself and a team of 8 volunteers, hosted a cafe promoting our charity. There were a few teething problems, especially at the beginning of the week when the catering team refused to buy 'Fisher and Donaldson' fudge donuts, due to the cost. Instead they substituted with an inferior cake style custard donut. Most people coming to this event, expect to buy at least 5 of these delicious treats throughout the week (some buying 5 a day) and with an audience of 2,000 people, they were silly not to oblige. Eventually they restocked with the 'real deal' and all was right with the world.
After buying yet another pair of wellies to cope with the muddy festival atmosphere, the sun eventually came out and so did many smiles, laughs, jokes and happy memories. I learnt some Dundonian (which I can still remember) and even got an invitation to Nigeria next year.
It was then time to move on to the next event. I packed up the car and after many goodbyes, I drove down to Carlisle on my way to Nottingham. It took me a day to get my head in gear as I flipped from one event to the other. Eventually, I arrived on site, briefed the volunteers and set up the cafe for another week of fun. One of my colleagues was also working at this event, which was a great help. My CEO and boss came to visit one of the days as they were doing a workshop; it was great to show them what I do at events. The volunteer team were so much fun and we even took a day trip to Sherwood forest on the day off and had a BBQ at our rented house. After inventing 'mocha mountains' (I am now a barista), writing math problems to the finance team and serving hundreds of speciality coffees; it was yet again, time to leave.
I loaded up the van with all the equipment and sent them on their way before driving to Northampton and meet up with the girls!
I was so happy and exhausted as I hugged the girls in the hotel foyer. After 19 days of not sleeping and eating properly, it was lovely to just lie on a hotel bed and catch up. We got all dressed up and went out to dinner, watched movies and made plans. After our last morning together, I dropped them at the train station and drove home to drop off the car and sleep for a day.
The two weeks in between my events went by very quickly with a movie weekend (6, my new record), a trip to London and baking for the office. Then it was time for the muddy, camping festival. This event started out drastically different than my others. The first thing I heard was a compliment about my driving! I had another colleague accompany me as we lead 4 volunteers to promote the charity on an exhibition stand. It was a mixed audience with hippy, activist types very excited about human rights, free speech and charity equality. I bought a hat with a tiger on it, as was the trend of the weekend and then tried to find the car and head home.
My friend Karl came to visit the weekend after and we took a day trip to Reading. It was lovely to be around the Dublin accent and catch up on life back at home. We went to the cinema, went out to dinner and got a box of Krispy Kreme donuts. They were awfully delicious. Being on a gluten free diet for the last 4 years has made me yearn for the wheaty goodness of donuts and other bad treats. I went gluten full last April in preparation for a blood test and I now have a renewed craving for anything that is bad for me. We ate 3 while watching a movie and another 3 the following morning over breakfast!
I head home this Friday for the first time in 5 months! This is the longest that I've ever been away from home and I'm really starting to feel it. I am very excited to catch up with everyone and planning a holiday for October. But more on that in a later blog.
Cheerio for now!
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