pumpkinstrokemarrow

For some reason, an external meeting is convened in something of a rush, without an internal meeting. It is to be held in a long low room, rather like a large barrack hut or one of those old fashioned village halls. Tables arranged in a hollow open oblong (one narrow side missing), occupying pretty much the whole room, with the chairman, his acolytes & toadies occupying the narrow side which is present. Lots of people turn up. Quite a lot of enthusiastic young people. Much hubbub. But without the usual preparatory work the meeting is likely to be a complete waste of time.

I scurry around trying to find my laptop or some paperwork so that I can get on with something useful during the useless meeting. I completely fail in this, in part because the head of the table seems to have become muddled up with my office and I can't get at anything, although my laptop is to be seen, all opened up & in pieces, in an open suitcase, sitting on my desk.

I find a seat at the already crowded table, about half way down the right wing from chairman. I start to wonder about refreshments and some canteen ladies wearing canteen lady coats appear delivering coffees and biscuits, these last still in their packets on their plates. Green Beryl Ware from Wood's, just like they used to use in the better mental hospitals & such like places, which we still do use at home and which is still available from http://www.chinamatchers.co.uk/. All seems a bit tacky, but then some quite decent loaves of bread start to arrive - but without knives, plates, butter, cheese or anything of that sort. Somehow we contrive a sort of runway and the loaves of bread start sliding in a rather uncertain fashion, up the table, towards the chairman.

The chap on my left, a smartly dressed young black, gets out a very fancy cigar, cuts it and makes his way outside to smoke it, leaving the cut end upended on the table to mark his place.

The meeting gradually gets under way. There is much confusion. I start to wonder if I can sneak out without being noticed, the only catch being that I certainly can't go back to my office without being noticed.

All of a sudden more or less everybody on my wing of the table decides that enough is enough, stand up and start to make their way out. I can exit unnoticed in the scrum.

At which point I wake up and the story comes to an end.

PS: even asleep, I seem to have a proper sense of public economy. The Home Office I knew often had to use rather fancy hotel meeting rooms rather than dowdy village halls. The result of meeting room muddle consequent on an office move. It got sorted out after a while.