Julie trys her hand at tic tac - watch out McCririck!As the title suggests, Friday 11th August was that day in the year when all the staff who have worked for Adrian Flux for at least 10 years have a free jolly up to Newmarket Races. Here is PDA’s report on the proceedings.

We all boarded the coach and set off, the true pros amongst us frantically combing the pages of the Racing Post for a 33/1 dead cert while Elliot frantically battled green monsters on his Gameboy. We finally arrived after a torturous hour and a half of listening to the coach radio.

Once into the racecourse it was full steam ahead to the bar, well apart from the women who, having been on a coach for 90 minutes, now needed to queue for the toilet so they could check their hair, lipstick, mascara, perfume, clothing and get re-assurance that their arse didn’t look big in what they were wearing.

Not prone to such bouts of vanity the lads were already eying up their glasses of cold beer, and the birds serving behind the bar.

The first race was due off shortly and the girls were quizzing the guys about critical betting information that would decide where their money went, “Does the jockey look nice?” “Is the horse Irish?” and “The horse was born on my birthday” were all valid reasons in their eyes.

The race was off and everyone was on tiptoes to see how their horse was running, apart from Kev Lee who had been shouted at to “sit down” by the people behind us in the Grandstand who couldn’t see! Towards the end of the race anguished cries could be heard from Catherine O’Sullivan “Why is he hitting the horse with that stick!?” as the jockey did his best to drive the horse to the finishing line.

As is so often the case some nag with no form or breeding came through to win and the amateur punters in our group were patting themselves on the back for their business acumen, ability to spot a future Derby winner and the fact that the jockey was wearing pink!

Back to the bar to lick our wounds and check that there was a cashpoint machine available if things continued in that vein. I’m not saying the drinks were expensive but Phil Harpham enquired about the price of a pint of cider and spent the rest of the night drinking from puddles.

The evening wore on with mixed fortunes for everyone, Kev Lee was on fire and picking winner after winner, he even had a touch when collecting his winnings of £11.88, the bookie gave him £12 and told him to keep the change, awesome! Paul Twite was looking through the card for a one horse race so he could actually pick a winner and Rob Balls had gone off to find a horse vet because he had toothache.

Jools Holland was doing his bit on stage for those who had nothing better to do.

Eventually it was time to board the coach, 30 minutes into the journey and the girls were screaming for a toilet stop, Richard Sim knew of a dogging site just 2 miles ahead where we could pull in. We piled out and Rob Balls headed off into the woods with Helen, not sure why cos the toilet block was just by the coach.

All in all yet another excellent event and, for those of us who have served our 10 year stretch, a welcome reminder that we were just too bloody lazy to find ourselves a proper job!!

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