butterflyuk

I am back after nearly a week away. My attendance to the Conference this year was less stressful than the past. First of all my Sickie and the dog both are better so less worry to leave them alone and secondly I didn’t have any compulsory speech to deliver. As it turns out I probably spoke on more topics but at least it was by choice and in the spirit of the debate.

It was a very busy week as I am on a couple of other committees and was forever being called for the meetings. In the evening we had a bit of socialising and entertaining to do so the economy of the city didn’t get the additional boost with my shopping.

One evening we were rushing to get to a dinner Dance after the hard day’s work. There was only so much time to get ready. As I am always late my friends threatened to ring the alarm bells if I didn’t come out of my room in time for the taxi. As I got showered and did my hair and make up I heard the loud alarm going off. Surely that can’t be for me even though it was getting close to the agreed time. Surely they wouldn’t put up a stunt like that even though I couldn’t put it passed them to play a prank……No, it was real. It was the fire alarm. I heard one of my friends who stayed in the next room knocking on my door shouting for me to get out. I said I wasn’t ready. He was getting pretty angry and kept on knocking on the door. I had to put the dress on and rush out.

He got a couple of elderly ladies out from the neighbouring rooms and pushed us all to the stairs on the left. He was very much in control and knew what he was doing…or so it seemed. We went down the stairs, walked through the passage in the cellar, and went up a flight of stairs with the poor ladies puffed out of breath in a state of shock. Where do we arrive??? The same corridor we started from!! We could have come out of the rooms and walked two steps on the right we would have been there in a second! We were too panicked to strangle him at that moment in time.

So there we were, sixty odd guests, all fully or half dressed, with or without shoes, not knowing what was going on. I had left hand finger nails painted and right hand not painted, mascara on one eye and not the other, had a party frock on but no shoes and most of all was getting late for a great party.

As it transpired later that one of guests had tried to dry her hair in the bathroom with the door closed and that triggered the fire alarm.

Mind you at times like this you know who your friends are, even though they drag you through the longest way possible when the fire alarm goes off! His reason was that it was sign posted “fire exit” that way. We forgave him after he bought the fifth round to calm our nerves.

No wonder I am feeling flat, empty and living in a slow motion after all the adrenalin rush and high of an exciting week.