My Election Dinner

My Election Dinner was great fun.  Although one might be a little apprehensive beforehand by the time the evening came as the Clerk’s Office had done all the work one could just enjoy it.  It was a great pleasure to have Sherriff Adrian Waddingham as our principle guest; a man who can make numbers amusing.  It was also good to have Major General Peter Williams as my guest speaker.  He has been a great friend and commanding officer throughout my military career and so it was very reassuring to have him at my side on this occasion.  It was of course the Master’s Song that causes some concern so it was a relief to discover that the pianist had only just been drafted in as a short notice replacement.  He was as unfamiliar with the tune as I was with the business of singing in tune.  So we agreed a pact in which I would bray loudly while he played whatever tune he considered appropriate in view of the noise coming from the other end of the room.  Relieved of any burden of keeping in time I thought I got along famously although I am not sure this was shared by my brothers in law, nieces, nephew and daughter who were present.

Barely had the last drop of port left my lips from the Election Dinner when next day I found myself at lunch in Drapers’ Hall as a guest.  It was a splendid occasion in a grand setting made all the more so by the fact that Master Draper had been Honorary Admiral of Fleet, a signal honour indeed.  I sat next to Master Wheelwright and we shared our thoughts on how best to engage our craft or art now that they were so diminished.  My suggestion that Quik Fit Tyres might be suitable somehow didn’t resonate.  Turning my attention across the table I please to meet a great friend of my late father from Lincolnshire so conversation settled happily into shooting and agriculture.