Disaster in Dublin

Been away in Dublin for work for the last two days. Althogh successful on a work front, it was utterly disastrous on the personal front.

For a start the journey to Dublin was an epic seven hours door to door. There were no queues at Heathrow, there was just delays for the plane. There were no queues on arrival to Dublin, there were just delays in the luggage coming out. Then we got stuck in traffic on the way to the hotel - and stuck with a particularly interesting taxi driver who announced to us (two girls) that all women were bitchy and with only half a brain. Nice.

We arrived at the hotel at about 7. My room, although very nice, only had three small side lights to brighten it up - and when you take into account the furnishings were rather dark in colour, it was almost impossible to see my hand if I held it out in front of me. I opened my case to unpack it and as I did so the words "wouldn't it be a nightmare if I forgot my trousers" travelled through my head.

I pulled out my shirt and hung it up - not too many creases acquired between ironing and arrival. Good. But you guessed it. That's where the good news stopped. Because on further inspection, my trousers did not appear to be in the bag. At first I started taking everything out of the bag in the vein hope that I was wrong and I just couldn't see them because it was so damn dark in the room. To no avail. The really weren't there.

So after a few minutes of intense panicking, I rang the front desk to find out if any shops would be open at this time. The man sounded doubtful but luckily the potentially open shops were just two streets away. Having no idea how to use the phone and still in a bit of a panic, I randomly called the number of my colleagues room, only to receive some sort of odd noise.

So grabbing my bag, I run down to tell her that I'm off to the shops and to my horror, she says she'll come with me. Now, as you know, I'm quite new in my job and I'm quite fat. I'd imagined she wouldn't come, because we don't know each other well enough to share crises. So when she said "hang on, I'll grab my coat", my heart sank. I knew I would have to go through the horrific experience of trying on clothes that I am too fat for, that look grotesque and that make me want to sit on the changing room floor and cry with someone I really don't know very well and more importantly, someone very thin.

So trooping off to Henry Street, thinny says "ooh look - there's Zara". Thin people don't understand the plight of us fatties. Zara? Honestly, I ask you - that's for thin people. But I'm trooped in there and try on about a hundred pairs of black trousers and skirts. None of which make me look like anything other than a half-melted block of lard.

Anyway, I ended up with a pair of trousers which looked horrific. But luckily, the next morning, during the bacon sandwich we had at our 8am work meeting I managed to spill tomato ketchup all down my top, my new trousers, my paperwork, the folder my paperwork was in... and pretty much anything else within a five mile radius. Pretty professional, I think.