Getting back into the old routine has been harder than I thought and I have found myself having to take afternoon naps before I can behave like a regular functioning adult and get on with the millions of jobs a parent has to do, and dealing with the frustrations of not being able to keep up with these jobs and balancing work and home life has got me down a few times and by the end of the day I shut the kitchen door on the washing up and the filthy dirty kitchen floor and go to bed, telling myself tomorrow is another day and after a goods night sleep I will be able to conquer all those jobs behind that door.
On Tuesday RNIB Connect sent me an email asking if I would like to attend a Marti Pellow concert on Friday, they apologised for the short notice and the tickets would come on a first come first serve basis, anyway, I put my phone down after reading the email and carried on with the day, just as I was climbing into bed Tuesday evening I remembered that I hadn't replied to the email to register my interest, so on Wednesday when I was sent another email saying that there were still a few tickets available, I snapped three up and then phoned 'the Nanas' to ask them to come with me.
A plan soon followed and I went off to work Friday morning knowing that 'the Nanas' would meet at my house and we would walk around to the train station and get the 2.34pm into London, go to the Victoria and Albert museum then get food by which time it would be time to walk up to the Royal Albert Hall, pick up our tickets and grab a drink, a perfectly chilled afternoon, right?
Alas...wrong! That little evil gremlin which sits on my shoulder just waiting to make my life into some sort of comedy sketch was on full bloody form.
Because I have been so tired I though I would do some delegating and I wrote a note asking daughter number one to nip to the train station and buy three travel cards and left the bank card complete with pin number and went off to work.
When I got home I made sure the daughter had purchased the tickets and that no problems had occurred, I was assured all was good, so I picked up my newly delivered post and took the envelops with me to the bathroom and opened them while I pondered on a bath or a shower. The phone rang down stairs and the daughter yelled up that it was 'just Nana' so I carried on opening the post...then all of a sudden there was this ear splitting scream and the daughter shouting 'OHHH MY EFFING GOD!! I BROUGHT THE WRONG EFFING TRAIN TICKETS, I THOUGHT IT WAS STILL THURSDAY'....Silence... you know when you just cant think of anything nice to say so you just stand there quietly trying to decide if you should say...ohhh don't worry, its not a problem or...ARE YOU EFFING WITH ME??? ONE BLOODY JOB, THATS ALL I ASKED....So I took myself into my bedroom, got undressed and climbed into bed and slept like a brick for 25 minutes, that was all I needed as when I woke up I was ready to get on with the day, half an hour later I was washed, dressed and sitting on the sofa putting my shoes on when the phone rang again, the same Nana was ringing to ask me if I knew that the train from our station had been cancelled, for a second I seriously wondered if the little gremlin had got its hands around my throat and was squeezing the life out of me, but no I jumped up grabbed everything I needed including the number one daughter who had been instructed to get the Nanas and I to a different train station where we would have a better chance of getting a train into London as there were two lines providing more trains. So, after queuing for ages I managed to get the wrong train tickets replaced with the right ones and although we stood there on the platform watching the display as one by one the trains were cancelled, by some small miracle our train rolled in and we even managed to a seat!
You would think that during the revamp of the train time table someone somewhere would have worked out that if you put on more trains you are gonna need drivers to operate them, but clearly this did not occur hence the utter chaos.
But anyway, there I was sitting comfortably on a brand new train, tucking my train ticket safely into my blue pouch and being whizzed through the countryside and arriving at Finsbury Park only slightly later than scheduled, from then on the journey was very easy, we got straight on the tube at Finsbury Park, the tube didn't get too busy and what's more, when we got off the tube at South Kensington, my train ticket was still in its blue pouch in the back pocket of my jeans.
With two hours to spare before we could collect the tickets for the concert, the Nanas and I tried to stick to our schedule and went to the V&A, we walked around for a while with Mum guiding me past the glass cabinets and found a room called the Italian garden, the Nanas took great interest in a couple of naked male statues, when I got nearer to them I noticed that their willies had dropped off, so after I had shouted across the room that the statues were penis-less, the Nanas decided that we should leave and go for food.
No deliberation..straight to Pierino's, me marching along swinging my stick in front of me, cos I know the way, both Nanas running along behind me, one Nana trying to guide me past bollards and the other (My Mum) yelling at me to stop every time I wondered a bit near to the road...I mean, what's the fuss about, I was going for pasta and nothing was going to stop me.
The pasta was bloody amazing as always and the puddings were pretty good too, by the time the Nanas had finished their second glass of wine it was time to go and collect the tickets from the box office.
My belly, full of pasta and pudding slowed me down for the walk up to the Royal Albert hall, so instead of admitting that I had eaten wayyy too much, I strolled along at a very leisurely pace insisting the Nanas took time to enjoy the beautiful buildings around us AND they fell for it!
Every single time I approach the RAH I cant help being entranced by its beauty, such an amazing building. Bag check was a breeze and a staff member tried to engage me in small talk about braille, but I needed a wee and couldn't concentrate long enough to string two words together!
So, we moved quickly on to the box office and collected our tickets without a problem, it was starting to get busy so another member of staff directed us to the Old Speckled Hen bar, which had just a sprinkling of people in, so we brought a round of drinks and waited for doors opening.
This was when my Mum looked at the tickets and realised that we were not in the usual box but in the stalls, mixing with the general public!! This brought a wave of panic over me as the familiar routine was no longer in place, I began to worry about how we would find our seats and what sort of view we would have, I need not have worried as the staff were more than happy to help us find our seats and once I had finished fiddling around with the wobbly seats (which weren't wobbly at all, they are designed to move to the left to let people pass without having to get up) and actually took notice of my surroundings, I realised that we were in some of the best seats in the house.
We were directly in front of the stage, but fairly sort of high up, the Nana to my right informed me that the Queens own box was behind us so we must have good seats! if we had been in the box that we usually are the view would have been restricted. When everyone else started to take their seats the atmosphere was incredible, something else you are detached from when sitting in the boxes. With a Nana sat either side of me we enjoyed the supporting act, a young man called Ben Mckelvey, I couldn't actually 'see' him, but his voice sounded young, strong and clear. He was extremely confident and played his guitar like he had been playing it all his life. He sang songs which he had written himself but explained the reasons behind the songs before he sung them, which made me really listen to the words, he talked about his family and his Grandad who had helped guide him through his career, and he said the best advise he was given was to 'never waste a word' that phase has stuck in my head, and for a blogger it is meaningful advise too.
The stage was lit up and looked really beautiful.
Mum had commented on the amount of empty seats, but as soon as Ben had finished his set, we had an half hour interval the place was rammed and every seat had a bum on it, including the three seats behind us which had been empty before. I think its such a shame that people don't come for the supporting act, after all 'Supporting' is something we all should do.
Anyway, I recon the three middle aged women behind us either hadn't seen each other for twenty-five years or had been gagged all day, cos they didn't shut up babbling for the whole half hours break, when Marti came on stage they screamed like thirteen year olds and kept yelling ..WE LOVE YOU MARTI...maybe I am a grouch but surely by the time you get to forty-six years old you have got to have grown out of that stage, but it appeared not. When they started jumping up and down I began to wonder if the three bottles of Prosecco they had consumed in the restaurant before hand was going to fizz up in their bellies and make their heads pop off their shoulders, but we weren't that lucky as they tried to talk over Marti, mind you, I don't know what was worse, the talking or when they tried to join in with the singing....all that said, they weren't annoying, they were funny and I certainly didn't fancy their hang-overs Saturday morning.
Once again, I couldn't actually see Marti, and as he started to sing his first song the lighting on the stage went for beautiful to bloody incredible, I have never seen anything quite like it, he sang a song he had written about going on a night fishing trip, not catching anything and walking home in the morning with the sun on his back, the lighting changed to gold and yellow spotlights and they shone over the crowd slowly moving upwards, it looked just like the sun was rising, you could even sort of feel the warmth just like it was the real sun, totally amazing.
Marti sang 'Wishing Well' ...literally the whole hall was belting out the words and I found myself leaning forwards in my seat singing at the top of my voice, we did seat dancing, we clapped and sang all night, Mum kept poking me to stand up and dance but my balance is so bad I was worried I might have ended up in the lap of the fella sitting in front of me so we 80's music danced from the safety of our seats.
Twenty minutes before the end of the concert, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and thank god I checked it, as it was a text from number one Daughter, telling me the trains home were being cancelled again, there was one at 11.06, but then nothing that would bring us into our station until the following day..so I gathered my Nanas and we left before the encore, which made me a little sad. The staff helped us out via the quickest route and we were back at Kings cross in no time, me swinging my stick franticly trying to get to platform 4 and the Nanas running behind me, we even managed to get a seat and home by midnight before the Nanas turned into pumpkins. As I laid there in my bed thinking about the concert I wondered if Marti Pellow would have been so good if it wasn't for the amazing surroundings, spectacular lighting, an awesome band and all those unsung hero's behind the scenes, yeah, he could sing, but he didn't do it on his own.
Back to the norm now, and my ears have stopped the buzzing that you get after a very loud concert. Half term next week so I am off for my dose of tinkling boats, good company and calm, peaceful surroundings.
Speak to you soon x
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