The Ball Weekend

Well actually, there were two of them. It all sounds very glamorous, does it not? On Friday night, we went to Seth's Actuarial Society Ball. It started at 6.30 which didn't leave a huge amount of time to make myself look pretty so I had to take my clothes for the ball to work, change at work then get the train into London Bridge. I didn't really fancy getting the tube to Liverpool Street at rush hour to meet Seth at his office, being as I was all dressed up and the tubes aren't that lovely at the best of times so I got a taxi. I work on the outskirts of London so I don't really get to see much, I don't work in a particularly amazing area but I absolutely love being in central London right in the middle of everything. It is such a great city and I loved just taking everything in. Definitely one of the advantages of travelling by taxi instead of the underground! It especially looks amazing at night time, seeing everything lit up. I've never seen the area that Seth works in before so I got to see it for the first time. It's really close to Liverpool Street station but to be honest, all I've ever seen of the area is, well, Liverpool Street station. But the area is lovely, there are a lot of amazing shops and restaurants. It made me feel quite envious that I don't work in that area and get to see it every day like Seth does. We met up with a couple of friends at Seth's office and then walked to the Tower of London. Seth and his friend weren't quite sure of how to get there from where we were and they were checking out google maps on their phones while I just read the road sign right in front of us which was so much easier. Technology isn't everything, you know!

The ball wasn't actually held IN the Tower of London, which would have been pretty cool, but in a massive marquee in the grounds. I don't think I've ever seen such a big marquee before, it was pretty huge. And it needed to be because I think there must have been around 350-400 people there. I always love people watching and this was a great opportunity for it. I found it quite amusing because a lot of the guys were  there, looking at the girls, and the girls were also looking at the girls, but to see what they were wearing, etc. It's funny how we do that! I definitely fell into that category of girls, I loved seeing all of the different dresses there, some of them were so beautiful! We had drinks first of all and I met some of Seth's work colleagues who are all really nice. We then went in to be seated. This part of the marquee looked amazing, there were fairy lights all across the ceiling which gave the illusion of a night sky. Seth and I were sitting on a table with just one other person from his office and then 7 guys from one of the other offices. They were all really nice, although sometimes they were talking about actuarial stuff and I had no clue about that whatsoever so I just had to smile. I would have nodded as well but that would have made them think that I knew what they were talking about when clearly, I had no idea! It was a fun evening and I really enjoyed meeting the people that Seth works with, it was nice to put faces to the names. This is the only photo that we actually took at the ball:
By the end of the night my feet were killing me! I had always thought that the sandals I was wearing were comfortable. Not so. We got a taxi with Seth's friends back to the office so we could pick up our stuff. At this point, Seth took off his socks so that I could wear them to help cushion my sore feet a bit! By the time we arrived at the station near our house, my feet were really quite sore, so I changed into Seth's shoes that he had been wearing earlier on in the day. I was quite a sight to behold in my long black evening gown and massive shoes. I didn't resemble a clown at all. Seth and I laughed a lot at how ridiculous I looked. I really wish that we'd taken a photo of me now so you can laugh at me and we even talked about taking one but by that point we were too cold and tired and just wanted to get home. Seth carried me some of the way home too, even though he had a backpack and a suit carrier as well. Greater love hath no man!

We went to the second ball on Saturday. This was our church's gold and green ball, which Seth and I were on the organising committee for. We were in charge of decorations, so after having four hours sleep the night before, we went to the church in Maidstone at 10am to start decorating. We had bought 150 metres of gold and green material to decorate the hall with. I'm making myself sound better than I was. Seth was the one who was climbing up and down the ladder and making it look pretty, I sat on a chair saying, "higher, lower, left a bit, right a bit". I think I played a very important role in the whole thing. Seth is a perfectionist so of course, the decorations looked amazing when they were finished! I had the responsibility of cutting strips of green material. Of course I wasn't playing with the material at the same time.
We finished setting everything up, material, fairy lights and the table settings with 10 minutes to spare before the ball started. It was a lot of fun and there was a good mix of people there of all ages. The band was great and a lot of people were up and dancing, us included. I can't remember the last time that Seth and I had danced, so I enjoyed dancing with him. When we were in Lancaster, we learned ballroom and latin dancing  and Seth already knew how to do ceroc, so we had fun jiving and cerocing (yeah, it's not a word) away. We saw some friends that we hadn't seen in a while so it was lovely catching up with them. It was a really busy weekend and we were pretty tired afterwards, but I must say, I rather enjoyed going to two balls in one weekend! Cinderella has nothing on me.