It was month end this week, which is always a really busy time for me. There are reports to produce and sales figures to download...I was getting kind of frustrated with the BD guys as some were exceedingly slow in getting me their report input. I got the final input about 30 minutes before the meeting on Friday!! Grrrrrrr!
Colin had a drama queen moment the other day, and he picked a bad time - it was 7:30am, the guy delivering breakfast for a meeting was standing outside when I got to the office as no-one had let him in (he was 30 mins early, but even so...!). I hadn't even got my jacket off as I was helping the guy set it all up, Colin wandered over and I asked him about whether he had dealt with an e-mail which had been sent to him, copied to me, and was super urgent, and I got this big "drama" back! I can tell that you are all wincing...I am better in the mornings, but I'm not cured!! He now knows what you all know! ie assess the mood and proceed with caution for the first 30 minutes of the work day!!!
Tim sent out the message saying that the Christmas Party had been booked, and that we were going on the Odyssey Dinner Cruise. Most people had said they had enjoyed it last year....most people apart from Paul B that is! He made the mistake of e-mailing back saying that it wouldn't have been his first choice (I think he likened it to being on the Metro at rush hour!), and Dawn really took it to heart! I suspect that if he complains on the night, he may be forced to walk the plank!!
Stephen and I escaped a little early on Friday. It had been a long week - we'd done around 45 hours and we thought "sod it, lets skip off early". So we did! We stopped by the ABC Liquor store on the way home. We had a bit of a craving for a G&T, and for that you need G! It was our first visit to the store since we got here, and wasn't too horrendous an experience!! It was just kind of strange having to go to a special store to get "hard liquor" when you can pick it up in the supermarket back home! We came out with our bottles in brown paper bags...just like every lush in every movie! We didn't slug it down from the bottle though - and I'm not sure that Limoncello is their drink of choice either!!
After a bit of breakfast, some packing and some phone calls home we headed off on Saturday morning. We had booked a weekend in Kingsmill Resort (not owned by the bread company - but owned by Anhuser Busch - the Bud company!) near Williamsburg. Stephen was having a nightmare day!! We were stopping to get coffee and he nearly sideswiped a car in an attempt to parallel park. Then he and another car both went for the same gap on the interstate (us from the left, and them for the right), thankfully they saw each other in plenty time, but he was definitely having a mare!! Which continued when we got to Williamsburg, checked in and unloaded the car.... I had asked him to bring my coat (either of my black coats - even told him where they were!), and he had gone to the wrong place and had thrown in a suit jacket instead!! I probably haven't mentioned the weather recently - 3 weeks ago it was shorts and t-shirts, 10 degrees above average, now it is big jackets and 10 degrees below average.... So I'm in Williamsburg, in the cold with only a scarf and a woolen jacket which is fine for slightly cold, but not fine for brass monkeys!!!!
...But I'm Scottish, and hardy, so I soldiered on!! Colonial Williamsburg was really interesting. It was renovated in the 1920's by a Rockefeller (it cost $70M which was a lot of dough!). It was exceedingly well done though, and captures Williamsburg in the period just before the start of the American Revolutionary War. We wandered about soaking it all in, then we had a nice lunch to warm us up and restore Stephens blood sugar levels (which were fine, but he had to blame the crap driving on something!).
The hotel was rather nice. It was one of these gated communities which 3 golf courses, tennis courts, a spa and a hotel with 3 or 4 restaurants. We decided to eat in their casual restaurant (translation: pizza, pasta and burgers) on Saturday. You know I mentioned the hotel was owned by the Bud company - well we found this out by reading the menu here!! We were laughing at the description of the chicken wings...or rather the Bud Chicken Wings with a choice of Bud BBQ sauce or Bud Hot Sauce "perfect with a Bud"...we quickly called it the "total Bud Experience"! We ordered the total Bud Experience (by its proper name), with the added bottle of Bud for Stephen. He looked at the waitress as if she was nuts when she asked him if he wanted his Bud Select now or to wait until his main course arrived...so accustomed was he to our reference to the Total Bud Experience he thought she was asking if he wanted his appetiser with his main course!!!
The room was comfortable, and the bed was delightfully squishy with mattress toppers and feather and down pillows...no problem getting a good nights kip here I thought....oh, how wrong I was!!!! I had turned back the 40 tog duvet as I knew that was going to be too hot, and left the summer weight duvet in place. I can't sleep if I'm too hot, so after the initial bout of exhaustion had passed I woke up. I kicked the duvet off. Still too hot. Eventually managed to doze off about 2am and Stephen's mobile phone went off!! Eventually dozed off again (about 3am) and then the heat kicked in (it was air fanned and REALLY noisy!). It was about 4am when I finally got over - I didn't think I was going to get any sleep at all!!!!
Despite my lack of sleep we got up early and headed off to see the sights. The plan was to get a coffee and muffin en-route to Jamestown....little did we know that this was the only corner of the US of A NOT to have a Starbucks every 100 yards!!! Jamestown was fascinating. It was the first permanent British settlement in the US, and is the backdrop to the story of Pocahontas (whom someone told me died of some horrendous STD - is this true?). We then went onto Yorktown which is where the British surrendered to George Washington at the end of the Revolutionary War. Didn't spend so long there - we were starving and there were no open food places to be seen!!! We headed back to Williamsburg about 1pm for some lunch and found a really nice cafe where we practically inhaled our sandwiches we were so hungry!! We had practically starved to death in the land of plenty!!!
After all the historical sightseeing we decided that we were probably in need of some retail therapy. There is an outlet mall in Williamsburg, and y'all must know that they are two of my favourite words!!! I looked up the location on my blackberry and we headed off....we were struggling to find the place, so I checked the blackberry again...just up here across from the pottery warehouse. Well, this was the crappest outlet mall I have been in! Dress Barn and the Black & Decker outlet...there were about 10 shops in total!! Disappointed we headed back to the hotel, and I had a snooze....I woke up (nearly 1 1/2 hours later - oops!) and the first words I said were "That wasn't the outlet mall...it was supposed to have Coach and Ralph Lauren...and it was supposed to be outside". Turns out that the second time I looked it up I got the wrong Williamsburg Outlets...if we had turned right instead of left at the traffic lights we would have found it!! D'Oh!!
We went back into Williamsburg for dinner to a restaurant called The Trellis. Totally fab food and desserts to die for! We certainly made up for the lack of food earlier in the day! We both had huge fillet steaks which were cooked to perfection, followed by utterly delicious white chocolate ice cream. Mmmmmmmmm!
We were more successful at finding the good outlet mall this morning. We stopped in on the way home. Very nice indeed! And not a Black & Decker outlet in sight!!
We were reviewing what we had learned this weekend on the car home. We learned that Pocahontas died aged 22 and is buried in Gravesend. We learned that there are no places in buy food in Jamestown and Yorktown (that are open out of season), or places in between. And most importantly (and I should thank the TV news here), we learned that America single handedly won the 1st World War and instigated Veteran's Day....
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