Two weeks ago Mum and I went into London to see Space Shambles at the Royal Albert Hall. I finished work at 1.15pm and Mum and I caught the 2.35pm train into London. Considering our usual calamities we had a calm easy run and found ourselves sitting in the usual restaurant with me eating the same thing I order every time. I'm not really one to drink, but they have these glass fridges and there was this bottle of pink wine at the front and it looked lovely so Mum and I had a glass each with our food. Trouble is, I'm not used to drink anytime of the day, so late afternoon on a very sunny day, after a day at work, with a belly full of pasta...well, lets say I was very relaxed!
As we sat there chatting, the place began to fill up with, well without being rude, not the usual customers I had grown to expect to see stuffing their faces with pasta in a small London restaurant. These were slightly oddly dressed, confidently eccentric and overly enthusiastic people. So, there were two ladies sat on the table to our right and a man and woman (presumably, husband and wife) sat to the left.
As I am always on high alert, I tend to tune into whatever is going on around me, that's my excuse for listening to other peoples conversations.
Anyway as these couples chatted, it became clear that they were also going to see the Space Shambles, which was lovely, but what I hadn't counted on was how excited they were to see some extraordinarily clever mathematician and how wonderful it will be to understand more about Quantumphysics.....I suddenly felt my one glass of pleasantly refreshing wine turn into one hell of a hangover as Mum and I sat there in silence looking at each other with our mouths hanging open as we realised that Space Shambles wasn't going to be anything like what we were expecting.
To be fair, I didn't really know what I was expecting, but was looking forward to something a bit different, and oh boy was it something different.
We left the restaurant quickly and giggles our way all the way up to the RAH, got ourselves settled in the familiar box and waited for the Hall to fill up.
Literally every single seat had a bum on it, and there's well over 5000 seats. I have never seen it so packed and with in the first 15 minutes it seemed Mum and I had found ourselves in a nerd convention. I tell you all now, we were way out of our comfort zone, and when everyone started laughing at a joke about PI, Mum and I were laughing hysterically with them, not because we understood why it was funny but because we had literally no bloody idea what was going on at all, then when they started measuring Pie with PI, that was it, we were both crying! When the maths bit was out of the way, they asked if there was anyone there who went to the Science march last year, everyone around us started cheering, waving and jumping up and down in their seats, while Mum and I sat there as still as statues trying not to be noticed. However, Science, space and astronauts are way more interesting than maths....although I get that maths is a really big thing when it comes to science, but anyway, I found myself leaning forward in my seat as they interviewed Rusty someone or other ...the astronaut on Apollo and they talked about the sun, planets and the stars. The science saved the night for us really, and as we sat on the train home with a carriage full of pissed blokes, reeking of stale beer, fags and Kebabs, I was so glad we had an educational night instead of a drunken one, for the following day, those blokes wont even remember what pants they had on let alone the crap they were banging on about all the way home, whereas Mum and I were full of knowledge, and there's no better power than the power of knowledge.
I really have enjoyed our trips to the Royal Albert and I've loved writing the reviews for the RNIB. The next batch of tickets is for the BBC Proms...cant tell you how relieved I am to be safely back in the comfort zone! Just hope a few tickets come my way!
I was having a conflab with some friends a few weeks ago about as humans we are always 'on the edge' in whatever we choose to do and how people in their day to day life forget how quickly life can be taken. When we are young we take for granted that we will live until we are old, and last week I heard about a young girl who was on the way home from school, she crossed the road in front of her house and was hit by an electric car that she just didn't hear coming. That young girl as far as I know is still in hospital and unresponsive. Despite having a couple of run ins with electric cars myself, I still wondered how the hell she didn't hear it. that was until yesterday.
Yesterday morning I had to go for a scan at Lister hospital, my appointment was at 8.10am so we got there about 7.30ish and parked on level 4 of the multi storey car park. There was hardly anyone about, so we parked fairly near the lifts. When I got out of the car it registered how dark it was on that level, but I felt comfortable as it was so quiet, I couldn't hear any tires or car engines so I started to walk ahead across the car park towards the lifts when this huge black chunk of metal flies past me. I swear, there is literally NO noise, this cannot be safe, this guy in his sleek black electric car had very nearly taken me out, I didn't see or hear it and for some reason the seem to move faster! I know that seems a crazy thing to say but, you know, as I am a science geek now, id say there must be some truth in it!!
I know our safety is down to ourselves but seriously, the worlds gone mad!
I have to go and walk Ralph now the sun isn't so hot....ohhh I forgot...the boy has had a hair cut, he is behaving like a little pup again! xx
Lynda you continue to amaze me! Keep going. X
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