How I nearly met Colin Firth

Some of you know I've had a rather hectic time of it lately with my day job. We have been very fortunate to be listed for some big awards for our work. This has meant a couple of flying visits to London. This week it was to the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel for the Guardian/Observer ethical awards. So, last night duly poshed up in my new maxi dress I toddled off to London to meet one of my colleagues for the big event. Colin and his wife Olivia are on the judging panel along with other luminaries like Ben Fogle, Deborah Mearden etc and in the other categories for the awards we knew Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearneley Whittingstall were shortlisted. Vogue also sponsors an award and we knew lots of the 'beautiful people' would also be present. Colin presented an award last year so we had our fingers crossed we might be lucky. Sadly we didn't win our category but we did get to meet some lovely people and it gave us the chance to promote our work - which for us was the whole reason we went. Colin wasn't there but his wife, Olivia was. She looked very lovely in a pale lime green maxi dress patterned with scarlet poppies and the cutest handbag I've seen in ages - like a little red shiny box the size of a coffee mug. Because she came and stood right next to me I can also tell you she smells very lovely. We did get to stand right by Ben Fogle who looked very dapper in his suit - including a waistcoat - which must have been hot as everyone else was melting in there. We were also privilegdged to hear Katy Tunstall sing live right in front of us and she too had been mingling with us riff-raff at the start. Fashions were amazing - I loved the lady with the leather handbag styled to look like a chicken, the man in smart suit with thick crepe soled shoes patterned in bright white stars and the lady with the Navy silk shoes covered in bright green polka dots.The gentlemen in dinner suit jackets and brightly coloured board shorts were also very striking. We were in London for less than 3 hours before we had to catch the train back but a very interesting evening.