Tuesday 11 October 2011

When Henry Met Helena

Me and Henry on one of our many nights out together.....

As Henry will be coming with me on my travels and most likely featuring quite heavily in my blog, I thought I should introduce him properly to those of you who may not have met him yet and will be wondering 'what in God's name is she doing with a toy dinosaur?'

Back in February, myself and some dear friends were taking a trip to London for a weekend to get us out of a particular funk we'd all been in at work. It was crazy busy and we were all feeling the pressure so a nice break was called for. Leaving the office that Friday evening, we were possibly the giddiest people in the city. Picture a group of 6 year olds leaving a birthday party after ingesting at least 2kgs of sugar each and you'll come close to what we were like that evening. 

After a rather hilarious journey to the airport (where I'm sure everyone else on the Aircoach was just itching to ask us to shut the hell up), we topped up our excitement with some delicious free drinks in the Business Lounge - passes to which are still a perk to enjoy while working in the travel industry! One short plane journey later and we had arrived in Heathrow airport. While waiting for our bags, we noticed a lonely toy dinosaur waiting by the luggage carousel. After a few furtive glances around, we determined that there was no one around who seemed to be missing a dinosaur and in the playful mood we were in, nothing seemed more natural than to take him with us. 

We did spend a few minutes trying to figure out what to name him; George and Henry were the 2 names that we eventually had to choose between and Henry won out. When you see him in person, he looks like a Henry  really. We played an excellent game on the Tube on the way to our apartment 'who can stand up the longest between stops and not fall over without holding on to anything'. Henry won obviously but only because his centre of gravity is so much closer to the floor.

He came everywhere with us that weekend, the London Bridge Experience, out clubbing. When we took him to lunch, I put him in the middle of the table. The waitress came to take our order and I introduced her to Henry. Obviously trying to play along, she asked if Henry would like anything to drink. I, being the lovely person I am, turned around and said 'of course not, he's a dinosaur'. Poor woman.

Since then, he's sort of become the office mascot. He's been to every office party we've had since then. He's been bowling in Bray. He celebrated Canada Day. He's even rubbed shoulders with the stars of Radio Nova (that's a whole other story!). A lot more lies in store for him, I'm sure.

Moral of the Story - when you find a random child's toy, don't just discard it. It could become a good friend.....or even just a conversation starter at parties!

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