Where these things come from Heaven knows but where we’re going with this is a shout out to my old pal Julie Hastings who has reimagined it as a Random Quacked of Kindness Day.
And yes, you can have that one Julie.
Hastings Hotels supremo Julie and me share a very important interest…
We’re both quackers about rubber ducks.
And she was good enough both to host me at the group’s flagship Belfast hotels the Grand Central and the Europa.
But also to send me on some from her collection (I’ll come to the many names for a group of ducks in a minute, and it’s not that) after I’d suggested names for her latest novelty ducks.
The Duckess of Cornwall
When Camilla was visiting… and I came up with the Duckess of Cornwall!
Now Julie rarely misses an opportunity to get her rubber ducks in a row.
And so has been gifting them at the company’s head Offices today at their offices at the side of Stormont Hotel.
It’s a great quacked of kindness in what has been deigned by someone somewhere Random Act of Kindness Day.
There have, of course, been too many to count across my Travels from our holiday providers, our dream makers.
Five friends
There has been the wonderful gesture from Zach at Visit Mississippi.
He only had a courier bring the mobile phone I had left in a hotel 100kms back, to Jackson, on the MLK50 odyssey in the Deep South.
The hotelier who sent up two bottles of wine and a fruit basket to my room on my Greek odyssey.
After I had bust in on an aged couple post-coitus in the Intercontinental Athenaeum in Athens after I had been given the wrong door pass at reception.
The whole town of Monaghan in Ireland who rearranged their weekends to accommodate us.
When we turned up a week early (I give The Scary One one job to do, one job to do!).
Bertha at reception in Switzerland (it’s a recurring theme) who waived my carelessness in leaving the shower running.
In my rush to join my group and catch the train in Interlaken.
All of which meant water dripped from the ceiling into the breakfast room.
And Julie, of course, who I have never admitted to but it is true.
That I was caught short and was sick on the carpet of her beloved Grand Central Hotel.
After one of her famous hospitable nights watching Van Morrison at the Europa and then following it up with a nightcap (or three) in the Crown Bar.
What’s a group of ducks then?
Now I doubt whether I’ll ever reach the numbers in Julie’s rubber duck fleet, flock, company, diving, paddle, skein or wabbling.
And note to self, enough wabbling.
And on behalf of all of us, well done again Julie for your generosity on Random Quacked of Kindness Day.
Alas, every day cannot be so if you want to get your hands on one of the famous Hastings Ducks then you will have to book a room.
The duck will be free but the rest will be on the bill.
