City Consorts 3rd Anniversary Lunch 'Zoom' style

Dear Members,

Last Tuesday, 15th September 2020, we celebrated our 3rd Anniversary with a visual Zoom lunch.  That was a first for me and probably also for many of the 65 of us who attended.  I must admit I didn’t sleep too well the night before for fear of messing things up even though Colin had given me a practice run the evening before.  I already had a Zoom log-in as we had enjoyed being part of a weekly quiz night group during lockdown but I’d always joined Colin then and never bothered to log-in in my own name.  He was out last Tuesday so I had to manage things on my own and I am pleased to report that for a technophobe I did it !  I chose to use the kitchen table for my venue.  I ditched the plastic table cloth with chickens on it in favour of a pale blue  cotton gingham one ( hope you all noticed ) and I shut the utility room door so that you couldn’t see the backdrop of the pile of ironing and even put a couple of roses in a vase.  Colin also warned me to be careful about not yawning etc as everyone can see you.  You think you are in a little ‘ box ‘ but in reality your face could be filling the entire screen at any time. 

Special thanks now to our host Richard Lovell.  He had this whole event so well organised and everything worked brilliantly .  I really only had to put the password in didn’t I ?  Everything worked so well, faces kept popping up as people logged on.  It was wonderful to recognise ladies I hadn’t seen for ages and, of course, many that I didn’t recognise at all but we all share a common interest and that is what brought us all together.  From being somewhat nervous about the lunch things moved along smoothly and in fact we would be chatting quite happily and then finding that we would get a warning on the screen that we only had a few seconds remaining before we would be moving on to another group.
Claire’s tips on lunch were very well received - I had no idea what to do so salad and fresh fruit worked beautifully.
It was lovely to know that three of our Lady Mayoresses were with us and sharing their stories from lockdown.  In particular, I think we all couldn’t fail to fall in love with Lady Samantha Bowman's Lockie the Jackdaw.  What a beautiful bird but I do have to ask if he is house trained? 

Despite my previous concerns, the time passed by very quickly.  If I can be totally honest here, having been away from my beloved London and the City for so many months now I didn’t even know if I would fit in again.  But getting together with everyone  has been lovely and encouraging and of course thanks are due totally to Von, Claire, Hannah and our wonderful Committee members at City Consorts.  Without them we wouldn’t have this incredibly special group and I know they will have spent so much of their valuable time and energy organising this event and I’m sure it has been very much appreciated.  I just look forward to the time when we can all be together again in person, in London and without having to wear a face mask.   

We will never know all the hardships that we all encounter at some point in our lives; this is a particularly trying time for all of us as it affects us all in so many ways.  None of us are exempt right now.  Take care.

Denise Cox