The Morning After

Today is the Morning After the Trafalgar Dinner Dance and if I have learnt one thing from last night's frivolities it's that I'm getting too old to spend the whole evening on the dance floor trying to keep up with the Younguns... oh, and a Fred Astaire I AM NOT.... But besides the tongue like Ghandi's flipflop, the bad head and the aching muscle that is my entire body, I had an absolutely brilliant night. As the traditional toast says: "To good food, good wine and good fellowship, we pay thanks"... and there was all three in abundance last night, I feel honoured to know such fantastic people and I am truly blessed to be able to call them my friends.
However, I think the senior officers on the top table were a little put out at the blatant display of happiness and gaiety emitting from the slightly over excitable diners, after all the Trafalgar dinner is supposed to be a Formal Naval Mess Dinner following VERY strict rules and etiquette. From the moment that you enter the dining room until the moment you leave there is a rule for everything you do. For example, 'Taking your seat prior to dining'

HOW TO TAKE YOUR SEAT. Take a standing position behind your seat unless you see the Mess President is seated. 
Check who is sitting on your left from the name card and, if it is a lady, remain standing until she arrives and assist her to her chair.

Only sit once the Mess President is seated. Do not touch anything on the table until after the first Grace.

Last night however was more of a free for all, a tsunami of diners hit the dining room running and squawking like escaping battery hens, once they'd finished pushing and shoving each other out of the way, they immediately sat and frantically rearranged the table settings in front of them like a mass game of cutlery chess. It was amusing to observe, everyone fidgeting as if they were receiving subliminal instructions from a single bored consciousness like the Borg Collective.

Eventually, once the Committee had mugged the Diners of sufficient funds and after the toasts and speeches were over and the tables cleared away, the dance floor was revealed.... My Favourite Part.... the old fuddy duddies in uniform had left and it was time for the Young Disco Divas(and me) to hit the floor and shake a mean welly..... which we did(some of us with a little more gusto than others), I wait in dread for the pictures to land on the virtual doormat of my Facebook Timeline.

Thank You once again folks for a fantastic night