Christmas Party & The Shooting Star!!!

Our meal was at Rathskellers Wine Bar & Bistro in King's Lynn, which is situated on the quayside, very close to the Bank House Restaurant which is where we went last year for our party. I personally wanted to go to the Bank House again, but the general consensus was that people wanted to try somewhere new. Our table was booked for 8pm.

At 7.35pm I was almost ready, but still had nails to paint! So whilst painting a coat of red and then a second coat of sparkly red, I had a wonderful triple glass (or it might have even been a quadruple come to think it) of finest brandy topped up with Cranberry juice. The taxi pulled up outside my house at 7.45pm and I felt very much in the party spirit!!! I then had the usual scenario of trying to get into a car with nails that are not dry! Amy and Sarah were already in the taxi and we then picked up Ann-Marie on the way. All the girls looked stunning and sparkly – great seeing everyone out of their boring uniforms.

We arrived on time, and were led to our two tables – pity it wasn't one big table, but there we go. Very nice setting, quality christmas crackers, although I didn't have a hope in hell of reading any of the jokes, I could only just about see the tiny piece of white paper!!! Staff very nice and service was good. I decided that I should drink water, as the brandy had now completely taken over!

Penny, Gemma and Sarah.
Photo taken by Sara Withers.

I had the "Fresh Fig, Walnut and Mardler Cheese Salad, Honey and Sesame Dressing" to start followed by a special order (I don't like mushrooms very much) of Nut Roast with Cranberry Sauce, Yorkshire Pudding, Roast Potatoes and Vegetables and for dessert I choose the "Dark Chocolate Mousse, Cointreau Sorbet, Almond Tuille". My starters was pretty boring and not one that I will remember in a few months time – I had a total of two walnuts and two pieces of cheese that were the same size as the walnuts along with a few small fancy lettuce leaves. My main course was faultless though apart from one thing – the waitress asked me 'do you eat beef gravy'? Ehhhh.... 'No' I replied..... and that was that, so I had no gravy at all, which obviously made the meal very dry! It doesn't take much to make vegetarian gravy does it! My dessert was the best dish and I gave it a 10/10 and would have happily have eaten several of these! As another colleague and I discussed, its the first Christmas meal that we had been too where there wasn't any coffee included in the menu or maybe mints, mincepies etc as is normal in most places. There was a band playing downstairs in the bar, but we left more or less straight away to go to "The Social" which is a cocktail bar and karaoke venue!

It was quite a walk from here, all along the quayside, through the town and it was freezing cold! At The Social, several people had a go at the karaoke and did really well, especially Caitlan who was really going for it! Scott and James did Tom Jones's 'Delilah' and there was lots of fun and laughter. Shared a cocktail jug of Archers, Vodka and Cranberry Juice with Sarah – very nice! A band then started playing who were good, but my not my cup of tea really. Some of our party then left to go home. The time just flew and it was 12.45pm before we got into Kudos which is a small club in town. Well I said 'club' there aren't any clubs as such in King's Lynn, its more like a pub with a couple of small dance areas! I usually enjoy being in here, but it wasn't up to much at all. The tunes had been set for the entire night and there was no DJ at all, so you couldn't request anything, which I was very disappointed by. There was no life in there at all really. Rachael Casey who was with us last year (now left and returned to Ireland), usually spices things up with her crazy antics, but with her not here and no DJ, it just wasn't the same. Everyone left by 1.30am, but I decided to stay and dance. There was still no DJ, but the music seemed to improve and I continued to fly round the floor! At 2.30am I had had enough and left.

It was frosty and chilly outside and for some crazy reason I decided to walk home. Attempted to cover my blond hair with my red pashmina and speed walked home – took my mobile phone and house key out of my bag and hid them on me, just in case I got mugged. Shouldn't have walked home really, but I did – it only took 28 minutes, not too bad for 2.5 miles! The skies were filled with sparkly stars and as I was looking up at them I witnessed a Shooting Star!!! It was 3am – I couldn't believe my luck – it was only yards from my house. This was without a doubt the highlight of the entire evening!!! See information here, about the Meteor Shower showing tonight and tomorrow.

As soon as I walked into my house, I played "Hideaway" by Kiesza and danced. Had a shower, tea, toast, watched a bit of TV and went to bed at 4.55am! Good Morning!

MORE PICTURES TO BE ADDED