The Boys are back in town!

Yesterday was the Annual General Meeting of our little Share Club which we lovingly called "The Leesons" after Nick Leeson who single handed brought down Barings Bank, England's oldest Investment Bank.

The Annual General Meeting usually takes place in London and follows the familiar pattern of "meeting in a pub for a drink - and another one - and another one - and . . well you get the picture . . . followed by a meal (usually Indian) and maybe some more drinks".

Alas, even though everybody had plenty of notice, most members of the Leeson’s gang showed themselves to be utter nappy-wearing slackers, making excuses and crying like girls as to why they couldn't possibly turn up.
For those who did show up, I think that we showed them up good and proper, having a good laugh, eat, drink and still do the club justice by actually coming up with the business stuff!

I can't believe how full I was after all that liquid and food and at the end of the evening my belly and I clambered into a taxi to get the train from Euston.
The taxi driver, who strangely resembled the love-child of Al-Fayed, the Harrods Superstore owner and Mike Tyson, the boxer (if that could work!), managed to hurtle me along Marylebone Road and Euston road in his shiny Mercedes, taking the under-path near Euston with such high speed that I turned around to see how close the Paparazzi were so I could yell “I am not Lady Di!!” at them before we would crash into some pillar in a "deja moo (haven't I seen this bullsh*t before)" sequence of events.
When we finally came to stop at Euston Station the driver asked me for £12!!! "Twelve Pounds??? Well, you'd better drive on then, since we are still some way off Milton-Keynes, which is where £12 should f*cking take me!!!"
Three things however convinced me to pay him after all:

1. I was about 30 pounds over my ideal fighting weight


2. He was morphing more into Mike Tyson rather than Al-Fayed


3. He did get me to the station in such short time that if I would stop arguing now, I might just make the earlier train
   

I got myself a ticket from the automatic ticket machine with the slogan:
"In a hurry?? Try me!" written on it.
I was in a hurry and I was going to try it! After pressing various imaginary keys on the touch screen (my long I.T. education finally paying dividend) and swiping my credit card it did produce my ticket in no time!

My Virgin Train (you know, like the one that crashed off the rains in the Lake District) was waiting, ready to depart and I no sooner had hopped on, that we were on the move.

The temperature inside the train was nicely adjusted to the (always feeling cold) female passengers at a constant 1 Million Degrees Celsius but all the guys were sweating like bomb disposal experts with hiccups!!
The air was soon heavy with the smell of what can only be described as "old Sumo wrestler's jog straps", which is not what you want when you feel utterly bloated anyway.

But when I woke up this morning at 10 o'clock, had myself a toast and coffee and a short walk in the sunshine, all of yesterday's things are just good memories.