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At 9.30 pm on the Thursday evening we all met up in the hotel foyer for the farewell dinner hosted by the Badajoz TRC.
All the Gateshead teachers had taken this as an opportunity to prove that we did in fact scrub up quite well.
The meal was held in the same room as before and the table settings looked sumptuous - all set for a banquet.
Liz was guest of honour at the top table with the key people from the TRC including Antonio (how could we manage without him).
The meal started with a range of fish canapes (Liz tried to explain that we called them blini). This was followed by more canapes that were delicious. The next course was crepes stuffed with pork in a cream sauce and the crepes were topped with a sweet pepper and tomato sauce. The main course was fish on a bed of mushrooms and onions. Not being a fish eater, I was given steak with julienne of carrots and courgettes. Dessert was layers of pastry with creme anglais and a caramel sauce. All this was rounded off with coffee.
When the waiters came round with liqueurs (including a lovely local one made from acorns) it was the sign for speeches to begin.
Antonio continued to be an excellent translator for those not confident enough to give their speech in English. However, he must have been tiring as a number of times he translated Spanish into Spanish.
After everyone, including Liz had made all the official thank yous and presentation of gifts, she had the chance to pass on all of our thanks to Antonio. He had seen us passing the gifts out to different people during the week and was now the recipient of one of each including gifts from individual schools and the Millennium Bridge glass paperweight. However, there were a few personal gifts - David gave a large bar of Cadbury's Chocolate stating these were his emergency rations that he hadn't needed and didn't want the excess weight on the way home. Colin, (a softie underneath) gave his Sunderland tie. This wasn't just any tie but one of only 500 made as gifts. Definitely something money can't buy.
After everything was fiished and despite our very good intentions of a not too late night, we were whisked off in a variety of cars to a local bar just over the river. Guess what ... it was of a slight Irish theme and sold Guiness.
Most stayed for just one drink then took offers of lifts to return to the hotel. It was going to be along couple of days travel back to the UK
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