Vampires in Narnia

Last Friday's dress up theme at Narnia was 'Vampires', which happened to co-incide with a) the usual St John's Ambulance crew breakfast and b) a fundraiser for Hospices. Kate's fabulous vampire-bride costume complete with fake blood dripping down her chin and neck was perhaps too convincing in such company. ONG was the only other staff member to make much of an effort but her medieval style black velvet tunic was so hot that she almost fainted mid-morning and had to revert to a t-shirt.

My excuse for only the most cursory of vampire gestures (bite mark drawn on my neck with red pen) is that I was involved in a painfully drawn out process of moving homes made more agonising by the persistant downpours which kept interrupting my efforts to get things in and later out of my car with out saturation. Most of what I am schlepping around the country with me are art supplies (ie expensive paper and painstakingly made plaster casts) and paper in particular doesn't respond well to moisture.

Fortunately or unfortunately my 'could do better' in costuming was rendered insignificant in the chaos reigning when I arrived at work. Not only was every table still full at what would normally be a quiet time, but the kitchen was bursting at the seams with people. The old chef was lying face down on the floor in the pantry (face practically in the dush pan) receiving therapeutic massage from his cousin Ash who was camping it up for anyone who had to squeeze past to get to the food. The brand new chef was being tested by cooking 50 breakfasts in his first three hours in the tiny kitchen, shared with Lindsey who was on dishes and tuneless whistling until they started some serious male bonding over expensive car talk. Kate, and the other two female staff were serving, making coffee and generally running around. I literally couldn't imagine where I could fit into this mayhem but within an hour Ash and both chefs left for the day and I got to work trying to replace the food flying out of the cabinet as fast as I could make it.