So on Friday night instead of collapsing in a heap we headed out to the West Berkshire Business awards. The local IT start up that Jam works for the fabulous Create IT had made it to the shortlist (one out of only four) for best new creative start up. The venue was the very glamorous Newbury Racecourse, on arrival it was drizzling but once inside the nice people plied us with champers which is always excellent. I left my dress decision to Jam, I had narrowed it down to my Helena/Bonham carter (its actually by Laura Ashley) tribute frock as seen here), a monsoon Pre Raph number as purchased for a ball at university or the purple cross over frock that I made from upholstery fabric (trust me when I tell you, the fabric was far too nice for chairs). As you can see the red won out.
We were sat next to Chris and his lovely other half Rhian who was wearing a fantastic blue lace dress (that’s Rhian not Chris).
as the lights went down the tension started mounting (theirs was the first result to be announced). There was however one further surprise, imagine my delight when antiques expert Thomas Plant stepped out of the wings to present the awards!
(apologies for the blurry photograph, I was maybe a little excited). The ideal close to the evening would have been for the create IT gang to swoop to victory, but alas they were beaten to the trophy by a business called purple something (can’t remember their exact name, do recall that a shop called The Gentleman’s shop ended up winning two awards, I’m thinking that might be along similar lines of the chap but it certainly warrants investigating on our next trip to Hungerford). So with the awards all given out all that was left was to admire the pretty flowers on our table (orchids under water, very striking):
eat the delicious dessert:
And approach Thomas Plant for his autograph (yes really, you never know if you are going to bump into these people again). Despite the lack of an award we all had a fabulous evening & you can bet your bottom dollar Create IT will try and get back next year for another punt at a prize!
