4pm, Tuesday, June 20: Mike Garner, creative director, Chemistry, takes a phone call from the Cannes Lions office. They tell him we've won a gold. Mike toys with the idea of impersonating both Adrian and I at the Awards, thinks better of it, and tells us. We immediately go home and demand sex from our partners.

6.20am, June 21: We take-off from Dublin Airport, carrying the hopes of a nation and one change of underwear. Each.

9.43am, Nice Airport: Note ads in arrivals for plastic surgery clinics and yacht management services – beats those big ads for Enya, the IDA and 'Fermanagh's great' in Dublin Airport. Clearly, we are in a different world.

10.45am, Nice: Breakfast and our first encounter with legendary Gallic service. Bad Leaving Cert-standard French is employed with scant success. We could converse with our waiter about nuclear waste or a ten-speed racer. What's French for 'knife'?

12.00 noon: On the way from Nice to Cannes. On the number 113.

1.30pm, Cannes: We must be the only delegates arriving by bus. The glamour! It's bright, sunny, and it looks like an advertising theme park. Lots of bearded men with ironic t-shirts, skinny production company reps and possibly some locals. Cannes attracts an incredible 10,000 delegates, most of who seem to come out during the day to stroll along the Croisette, which is French for seafront.

2.30pm-7.30pm: Walking around, looking at Ferraris, designer clothes shops and giant pleasure cruisers. Tramore it isn't – here, wealth is very conspicuous in its consumption. I begin to feel like my pants are held up with string. Looking around the harbour, I am reassured by one thought; it's all very well being wealthy, but no matter how big your yacht is, there's always someone with a bigger one.

7.30pm, Palais des Festivals: The awards show in the Palais, a huge, cavernous space. We are shown to the seats at the front marked 'winners', as distinct from the seats behind marked 'Procter and Gamble', a simplistic but accurate way to divide up the world.

The awards begin with the cyber Lions, covering websites, online activity and virals. There's some really clever, funny, and involving work (see canneslions.com).

Now it's the press Lions, our section. The gut really begins to tighten with excitement, fear and the worry that it's all been a big mistake, that they meant to call Kemistri in Dubrovnik, or that when we get on stage, my trousers will fall down, or…

Our names are called and suddenly the enormity of a gold in Cannes is revealed. Awards can be pretty subjective things, but given that Cannes attracts 20-something thousand entries a year, it's still a bit of an achievement to win.

All our efforts at being nonchalant go out the window. Each winner's walk to the stage is accompanied by a different piece of music – neither of us hears it as we unstick ourselves from our seats. It might have been Laurel and Hardy's theme.

We get the award, mumble something to press jury president, David Droga (ex-Publicis creative boss who now runs his own agency) who, pose for a picture and then return to our row. It's feels like an age, but still don't manage to inhale in all that time.

9.30pm: It's all over. What, no chicken and chips? No volley vaunts? No cocktail sausages? Unlike most award shows, Cannes doesn't do catering and we're turfed out. Not even a drink. So we shuffle off, Eric Morecambe-style, clutching our award.

Unlike most agency folk here, who seem to have arrived en masse, or who are part of a large network, it's just Adrian and I. We're an independent agency, which means no corporate hospitality, no box, and no bookings.

No matter – we sit on the beach on the longest day of the year and have a few beers, watching the lights grow brighter along the Croisette. Then, we go for a wander and some more drinks. The big gold Lion, taken out of context, begins to look like a tacky souvenir. We quickly drop it off at the hotel and head out.

Midnight, the Croisette: This is more like it. Lots of beach-front bars and restaurants and each has been taken over by production companies, agencies, record firms and the like. The noise is incredible – each party has its own sound system and heaving crowd.

The Massive Music party is particularly wild, as you'd sort of expect from a company based in Amsterdam – we've worked with them recently and they are a nice bunch. Then on to the Gutter Bar, which is the colloquial name for the festival's busiest spot.

There are literally hundreds of people spreading out across the main road, as if spilled from an upturned bottle. It's really getting messy, with much boozy schmoozing. We mingle. It's great fun. We lose control of our wallets.

4-ish: It's been an amazing day. I stagger back to the hotel and fall into bed with a beer from the mini-bar. The gold Lion sits on the bedside table and looks on as if to say “Oh great, I've been won by an Irish agency.” I say goodnight.

12 noon, Thursday, June 22: It's time to make our way back to Dublin. Handed client brief at 4pm. “I'll be expecting great things,” agency boss Ray Sheerin said. How we laughed as we gave him our receipts.

Emmet Wright is deputy Creative Director, Chemistry