Have you ever seen a bunch of people on a hen weekend or corporate 'teambuilding' event or something similar - all walking around in the same colour, appropriately printed-up T-shirts and thought - "what a bunch of *$%^%$^%s!!"? Well, I confess, I have. But after last weekend, I'm afraid that I shouldn't really be critical anymore, as I was one of them....

There was about 350 of us in total (we were the red 'Thames' team) running around London trying to accumulate 'clues' from various touristy attractions and dressed-up characters along the way.

This was the Leaseplan Annual 'Eurogames' event - and takes place at a different European city every year apparently.

It was a glorious day (I would have prefered to have been in my garden - but hey ho, the sacrifices us corporate wives have to make;). But I have to admit to being quite proud of the city in the sunshine, when many of our 'guests' from all over Europe had never been here before. Trafalgar square looked particularly impressive, and I longed to lie down and relax on the grass when we got to St James' Park... but it was non-stop...









Each team was allocated a proper red old-fashioned London bus to transport us from one side of London to the other..

Before lunchtime we were already two valuable team members down as the Irish contingent went back to the hotel to sleep off the far-too-many-free-guinesses they had the night before at the 'English Pub' evening the hospitality team had arranged for us the night before (inevitably, some people never got to bed at all). With only 4 other team members who had enough English and enthusiasm to complete the 'challenge' we had our work cut-out for the afternoon. We decided to split into two teams - one was to get the obscure photos we needed (26 items in only 10 polaroids - and we had already wasted one)
And the others to get the remaining clues (last destination, Kensington). This was strictly against the rules - but heh, it was a near impossible task and by this time we just wanted to get what we needed and get back to the hotel bar for a glass of something cold...







There was a few street-painters along the way...









I saw the famous, controversial sculpure of Alison Lapper's torso (she was on Radio 4 tonight talking about it)...
.........The only disappointing thing was lunch. We ended up near to Swiss Cottage, but the pub that was arranged for us only had a room downstairs in a claustrophobic cellar and the food was....how shall I put this politely..worse than terrible. Fortunately, there was a little authentic sandwich-bar place just opposite, run by a friendly Italian guy, who it turns out can speak about four languages (that we witnessed) and made an excellent fresh ciabatta..



























Needless to say, some of the less experienced Europeans went round the corner to the nearest Mickey D's...(sad).

Patrick and Peter outside Charing Cross station...we're waiting for the rest to catch-up (those shop windows are so tempting)...























We collected most of the clues and challenges. The only one we struggled with for a while was the signature of a traffic warden (apparently they're not allowed to give them out)!! But we persuaded one in the end with a little white lie that it was for charity;)

J in Hyde Park - with the answer to our last clue (at last!!!) - Kensington palace "Which King is inside the gates?"
Afterwards it back to the hotel to get dressed-up in the Little Black Dress (not J you understand - although some of the French unsurprisingly obviously didn't really understand the wording on the invitation) for the evening do. Before long we were back on our (by now, beloved) old London Buses to travel over to Fulham to dine at the Georgian Hurlingham Club which is (amazingly) set in 42 arcres of private gardens....where they had arranged an excellent reception and dinner for us which included the marble sculpture people you see sometimes on street corners (although obviously alot more professional)! It was all very impressive, including the grounds, croquet lawn and the modern water features outside the dining room. You couldn't have hoped for more quintessentially British summer evening surroundings...

Can you spot where I am...?

With many thanks to Candy and all her team for being an excellent team-leader!

PS Hey, thank God for Blogging eh? What else would you do when you can't sleep???ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz