I’ve mentioned my accountancy clients before in this blog – recommending them to any business or individual who needs a fantastic accountant. I also use them as a case study in my social media training workshops and LinkedIn sessions. So I feel really proud to be included in their team activities – and it was awesome to be invited to join them for a day out in Paris!
The day was such good fun. I didn’t mind the early start for a change, and we arrived in Paris in time for lunch. Steak et frites, avec a bit of someone else’s salmon and a gorgeous chocolatey melty dessert that was so rich some people couldn’t eat it all – so I greedily finished them off!!
We saw the sights from the top of a hop-on-hop-off open-deck bus; freezing, but a fantastic way to see the city. After viewing the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower and the eternal flame monument dedicated to Princess Diana, then riding along the Champs Élysées and battling our way around the Arc de Triomphe, we caught the metro to Montmartre. In my favourite spot in Paris we sipped hot chocolate, wandered the cobbled alleyways and bought pastries for the train home. Très bien!
The biggest thanks possible to Mark, Sharon and the whole Nordens team for putting up with me for the day – it was amazing, thank you!! xx
On Sunday I had the pleasure of 
attending the Celebrity Guild lunch to celebrate 30 years of Eastenders. I don’t watch it, but I did years ago, so what a relief to spot some of the ‘older’ faces in the room. Gary Hobbs has grown up nice… I did tell Phil Mitchell that I don’t watch it, but I didn’t admit to being a Corrie fan. There are some things that are just best left unsaid.
Bobby Davro provided some hysterical entertainment after lunch – I didn’t realise how funny he is. Such a nice man too – as was everyone I met. Ian Beale wasn’t there, but a sudden recollection of him popped sharply into my head. Gill and I saw him once, at the Middlesex and Herts Country Club (not as posh as it sounds). He was walking by the pool, laughing and mucking around. I would have gone up to say hello, being an Easties fan in those days, but it wasn’t to be. Because… Gill sat on a bumble bee! My potential date with an actor (big deal in 1983) was scuppered while we found the first aid room and some tweezers!!
Martin Kemp didn’t show up either, which was a shame because I had been practicing singing Through the Barricades. So probably just as well.
I was honoured to share my dining table with four heroes from Bomber Command. Elderly gentlemen with rows of medals, acknowledgment of the fight they fought to protect our preceding generations and ensure the continuing freedom that we so casually take for granted now. (Yet how fragile it is…) That’s the real reason I was there… I was invited to join their table by the Soldiering On Through Life Trust, a wonderful charity that supports severely wounded military men and women and their families.
In Martin Kemp’s pre-acting, Spandau days, they said, ‘Father made my history; he fought for what he thought would set us somehow free.’ And really, that’s exactly what Bomber Command did. Soldiering On are selling raffle tickets (you can win a motorbike, a Breitling watch and loads more fab prizes). If you’d like to support them you can get your raffle tickets here. Or follow me, as I’ll be retweeting them: @WeekendWitch.
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