These are the champagne flutes standing on the bar at Rhodes 24 tonight, soon they will be filled and the room will be full of 65 of our guests who are all winners of our annual awards.

We’ve hired out the whole of Rhodes 24 to celebrate the best in healthcare communications with our clients. Our guests were treated in the first instance to the most amazing view of London at night – spectacular from the 24th floor of what was once known as the Nat West tower and these days is Tower 42.

Champagne and canapés met them at the door, then a sumptuous meal followed by picking up their awards and a signed copy of Gary Rhodes latest cook book.

As most readers of this will know well, I am a great lover of good, simple food and good wine. You’d certainly go a long way to get better than what we’ve eaten tonight and for me to say that at a mass-catering event is as rare as hens’ teeth as they say.

Our guests had a pork sausage, in what I think was wine gravy with caramelised onions and redcurrants. They went on to Monkfish with shrimps, followed by bread and butter pudding, which my neighbour said he didn’t like at the start of the meal. When I turned to him as he was half-way through the pudding and asked what he thought of it, he said his views of the dish had been totally transformed. My neighbour on my other side actually gave out a little moan of pleasure as she took her first mouthful of Monkfish. I think it’d be safe to say the guests felt they’d been fed well!

For us veggies, broad bean soup with a poached egg floating in it (yum, yum, yum), followed by ‘potatoes as architecture’ as one guest described the potato nest filled with caramelised onions, wild mushrooms and topped with a cheesy sauce. I must say, I know I picked it but I thought it was superb.

But all of that is not all – Gary Rhodes himself came to meet us while we were preparing for the evening. He allowed us to get a photo of the team with him. What a charming and gracious man he is – if anything, less ‘cheeky chappie’ than he comes across on the telly but certainly an excellent host.

His team were quite simply the most impressive restaurant team I have ever seen. They could not have provided our guests with better service and (although they of course look after their ‘customer’ first – me) I must say that they made me feel special and cared-for while I was fretting about going onstage after the dessert to give my speech and dish out the 28 awards for the evening.

For all of our worrying and fretting in the build-up to this event, I think it went off very smoothly and our clients left happy. Phew.

Last year, I was dazed and confused!