Nights Out...

Genesis Appeal Winter Ball 2012

Last night my friend Tasha and I went to a charity ball at the Radisson Blu in Manchester. It is very random how we ended up there - basically we wanted to dress up and go to a ball, and I saw this one advertised on Twitter as it was hosted by a publication company that I follow. On the spur of the moment we decided to go, as we figured it would be a laugh and was for a good cause, so why not?

I picked Natasha up at quarter past six and we headed into the city centre. We were a bit worried that we would be late as the invite said 6.30pm prompt for the champagne reception, but we seemed to arrive at the perfect time. We gave our coats in at the cloakroom, picked up a glass of champagne and wandered through to the bar, where everyone was gathered. There were casino tables and a Christmas tree with baubles with numbers on for a raffle; and with all the other decorations the room looked very festive.

We were ushered through into the dining room after a while, where we found our table and sat down. We were introduced to the people on it with us, and then had our starter, which was a roasted vegetable salad with goats cheese on top. Tasha and I had ordered two bottles of wine to be on the table, and it went really nicely with the starter - there is nothing worse than wine tasting awful with food! The main course was roast beef with vegetables and a potato rosti, which was in a gorgeous rich gravy, and was the perfect size considering we were having three courses. After that there was coconut pannacotta with a lime biscotti and lemongrass chantilly, followed by tea/ coffee and chocolates which were amazing! They were made by a company in Wilmslow who had also donated a raffle prize, and their chocolate is exquisite.

Once we had finished eating there was the raffle and auction for charity. Obviously it was for a good cause (The Genesis Appeal) but it took forever, and we got a little tired and bored waiting for it to be over! After an hour and a half, the band started playing, and people got up for a dance. We danced to a few of the later tracks, before going back into the bar for a go on the Christmas tree raffle. We were lucky enough to be placed on the same table as the organiser, so he gave us a few clues in choosing our numbers!

We then had a couple of photographs taken, some nice and some silly. We bought one of each for ten pounds which I thought was quite good, as they are fairly large and in cardboard frames. Then we ate some things off the chocolate fountain table, they had fruit, marshmallows, fudge and mini doughnuts! By this time we realised we still had the best part of a bottle of wine to drink, so we headed back to our table to sup up and have a boogie until it finished at 1am. We got a taxi back (cheap too - £20.50!), and I was shattered after such a busy couple of days, I fell to sleep almost straightaway. It was really fun to have done something a little different on a Saturday night, everyone loves to dress up don't they? We found out the following day that over £5,000 had been raised for the charity as well which was really good to hear.