Pillars...

We use a really great company to do the sound and lighting at our events and as usual they did a fabulous job. I love the pillar lights and I couldn't decide which colour I liked best to post so I went with a selection. 

Hopetoun House as a venue was my favourite of all the places we've used.  Not least because it's quite simply fabulous, but the staff were amazing. If you've not noticed by now, I'm a control freak and I'm sure I'm annoying with it, but if a job is worth doing, it's worth doing it well. Both Lara and Kirsten were brilliant. Nothing was too much trouble and they were on hand all day to make sure everything went smoothly. It totally did. Credit to them all. The food was amazing too. I'd definitely recommend the venue and would definitely go back again. 

The conference in the afternoon was a copy of the Dragon's Den TV program and I think it went down quite well. A bit different from our usual format but there were a few laughs throughout the afternoon with the ideas and pitches. The winning pitch was pretty funny and the dragons were brilliant. Everyone got on board and joined in which was great, that was the whole point. 

I'd really liked to have blipped our horse race but after telling everyone else that it wasn't acceptable to post pictures of our partners making tits of themselves on social media, I thought probably best not!  However, they were awesome sports and got into the pantomime horse outfits and duly ran the first horse race which pretty much meant that everyone else we roped in couldn't really refuse. We raised a stack of cash for charity which is great and the firm have very kindly agreed to match it.

I think my favourite moment was when the ice-cream van turned up and there was immediately a queue of people... who says booze and ice cream don't go?!  I eventually found the local guy from South Queensferry, with a little help from a random resident on Facebook, who agreed to pitch up just in time for the horse race and came up the drive with his tune tinkling. Brilliant!

The whole day was a great success. All the months of hard work paid off. I think everyone enjoyed themselves, there were no incidents involving the first aid kit and I haven't heard of anyone puking on the bus so that's a major plus. 

I think watching people you work beside jumping on a bouncy castle has to be one of the most surreal moments at a training conference yet. The rounders tournament wasn't rained off thankfully and everyone got involved. I think they're all big kids at heart. We even managed to convince some of them to get into the chicken sumo suits. I roped in Jonny and Ronnie (the 2 onn(ie/y)s) to be our Ant and Dec for the evening and they did a brilliant job getting everyone involved. 

The weather held out mostly and all in all we had a good day. I was home late and by the time I got home I felt like I had the body of a 90 year old. I looked at my fitbit app and it turns out I walked 16.42 km (10 miles) throughout the day and I didn't leave the courtyard of the venue. Must get fitter!!