I awoke to a room littered with empty bottles and cans. My first thoughts were "Where am I?" and then "Thank God the company's paying for that little lot". Yes, that's right, it was the aftermath of the Annual Christmas Company Party...or "Works Do" as they're called in these parts.

The previous evening a few of us had driven up from Cardiff to the Five Star Resort called The Celtic Manor.....this place had hosted the recent NATO Summit and more famously the Ryder Cup a few years earlier. The thing that we noticed driving up was a huge Full Moon hanging low in the early evening sky. Lunacy sprung to my mind and I had an inkling of what was to follow.

We drove up to the main entrance and asked the flunkey where we should park, he pointed us in the right direction and insisted on taking our bags. I said we'd be back to pick them up. After parking up quite a long way away we boarded the shuttle bus that would take us back to the main entrance. We then proceeded to check in. The main foyer was pretty impressive and the place was very very busy. At Reception I was greeted, in a fashion, by a young South African lady who looked as if she'd had enough of dealing with the paying customers. "What is your name?" she said. "Gibbs" I replied...."How do you spell it?" - "Like you say it" said I. "Did you come here by car?" said the camp Kommandant, "Yes" I said....."What is the registration number?" - "No idea" I replied. "Why not?" she said. " I was a passenger" - "What make of car is it?" ......"I dont know, it's a car.."........as you can tell we were getting on like a house on fire by now. "Can I have your credit card?" said the Yarpie. "No" I said. "The company has paid for the room and you've got the details.." - "If we cant have a credit card you cant stay here." - "That's fine by me" . My colleague Helen then stepped in and offered her card although I told her she shouldn't as no doubt a huge bill would be racked up. Helen wanted the quiet life and this ended the conversation with my South African Interrogator. We were off to a great start.

Actually the fun had started a couple of hours earlier, I've had a few days off and so I'd arranged to meet up with my work colleagues in Cardiff and get a lift with them to the hotel. I'd got the tuxedo together and everything was going well. I then asked Lord Gibbs for a lift down to the railway station....which he obliged. On dropping me off, Father said "Don't lose your clothes" - Thus jinxing me straight away. I walked over the bridge and hung the suit bag up while I waited for the train. Eventually the train arrived and I settled in for the relaxing ride into town. The weather was nice and lot's of space on the train. Fifteen minutes into my enjoyable train ride, I realised my suit bag was still hanging up in the station I'd left earlier. Doh.

The old boy did a great job of retrieving the suit bag.......he'd had to drive back to the station and run over the bridge....he just about made it as one of the train guards was about to take it with him on the train to Penarth. Father then had to drive for twenty minutes to meet me at the train station I'd jumped off so as to collect the forgotten items. So that was an entertaining start to the evening.

After the fun of checking in, I went to get our bags...and yes they'd lost them. Well some of them, I found one of my bags outside on the floor but the flunkey told me they'd just had fifty guests arrive and they were a bit busy. After ten minutes I managed to find them on a trolley in the store room and so gave them to my waiting colleagues.

The Celtic Manor is a pretty big place, with three golf courses, swimming pool, gym and at this time of year hosts a Christmas Wonderland, so that meant the place was swarming with the great unwashed of Newport and their screeching offspring. I'm sure this place meets the criteria of being an establishment worthy of five stars but it's clientele are certainly not.

The room was excellent and the place was tastefully decorated with Christmas Trees and trimmings. We'd had a few hours to wait before we attended our Black Tie Extravaganza and so I wandered around checking the place out. The hotel is huge with lots of levels and you find yourself wandering up and down long escalators that lead to large empty corridors and you sometimes get the feeling that you're in that movie "The Shining".

After shoe-horning myself into the tuxedo I took off for a squeaky stroll and eventually ended up in the immense bar downstairs. It was very full and despite the fact everyone was wearing black tie outfits you just knew most of the Gentlemen present were our old friends The Heavily Tattooed Bellowing Apes who had simply been squeezed into a tuxedo for the night. This theory of mine was proved correct a few hours later. I met up with a couple of my work colleagues and we then took the endless escalator journey down to the Caernarvon Suite which was our venue for tonight's "Black Tie Extravaganza". More Flunkey's were at hand to dish out the Champagne on Arrival and as usual at these things everyone stood around in groups excitedly talking about work.

We were then ushered to our designated tables for the festivities to begin. The vino collapso was poured and party poppers filled the air. Pop Music drifted in the background. A quick look around at our fellow guests and you could see that our old friend Alcohol was certainly doing the trick. Food was served and very good it was too. Then after everyone was suitably bloated the band took to the stage. This caused great excitement and Sir David Attenborough's languid commentary wouldnt have been out of place...it was as if a herd of Elephants had stampeded onto the desert plains. Some of the stampeding ladies were shall we say a little on the large size and it was nice to know that the Circus Big Top manufacturers had been kept busy producing their outfits. "Working Nine to Five" by Dolly Parton kicked off the frenzy, with no hint of irony from the assembled wage slaves. When they started playing Abba, one young lady in particular took my eye...weighing in at heavyweight level & wearing a lovely silk blue spinnaker, she had a face that launched a thousand ships, which had all promptly sunk. "Dancing Queen" was the tune and our twirling lovely was, in her own mind "young & sweet, only seventeen" but to everyone else she was an out of control drunken hippopotamus that managed to barge everything out of it's way that came near her uncontrolled orbit. This went on for some time. Some of our colleagues by this time had headed to bed but the others then headed off to the Grand Bar to the left of the impressive foyer.

Things were mostly civilised for about an hour as we lounged at our table, then true to form an altercation broke out at the bar. It was now time for the traditional Festive Fistfight & all sense of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all men were things written on Christmas Cards. It was an impressive Five Star scrap and the Tuxedos no longer hid the true nature of the bellowing apes. I particularly enjoyed seeing one of them flying backwards over a sofa and banging his head on the table. Alas the entertainment was short lived and the excitement was brought to a close by some rather larger shaven headed bellowing apes wearing "Security" uniforms, who I assume must be used to this kind of thing. The downside to all this fun was that the management decided to close the bar?????? Which was a bit off I thought.

Those of us that were left standing then headed back for the plundering of the mini-bar back at my room, which as I recall went on for some time and I believe the party came to a close around 4.30am. I was determined to make it for breakfast though...I remember that much and did manage to set the alarm on the phone...and so I did awake.....which brings us back neatly to the start of this blog........

I hope Christmas has been a good time for everyone and it only remains for me to wish everyone Health, Wealth & Happiness for 2015 !!!!!

LG