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Lords Panorama
Not the best picture, but you get the idea. We were sitting right next to the Media Centre. Well since the last update, I have been on the go non-stop. There haven’t been any overseas trips, and it feels like ages since my last one. I looked at my diary and it was May the 8th, so only 6 weeks! I don’t know how I am going to cope when I eventually make it back to New Zealand. But in the last 6 weeks, I have seen a lot more of the UK, met some really cool people, and had one very painful experience, but I will get to that in due course.
After Menorca, the next event on my calendar was the concert show ‘Chess’ at the Royal Albert Hall, which featured several stars from other musicals, including my favourite, Kerry Ellis from ‘Wicked’. My faith was well founded as although she had a smaller part, she stole the show. Overall, it was enjoyable, but I know all of us were disappointed in the acoustics of the Royal Albert Hall. It was very difficult to make out the words, and the storyline when they were singing, especially with an orchestra in the background.
After that, it was a very busy week for me where I went
Lords Pavillion
The famous building with the players coming out. As you can see not the best weather for cricket. to the 4 top entertainment venues in London in the space of 7 days! First up was 2 days visiting the home of Cricket, Lords. It was amazing being there, especially since cricket is my first love and I can picture the history of the place, back to the days of Sir Donald Bradman, and more recently, NZ winning here in their first series victory over England here back in 1999. Sadly, they couldn’t repeat the performance, and the match ended in a draw. That was mainly due to the rain that fell on the majority of the two days I was there! Over the 180 overs possible on the 2 days, I only saw just over 60. Oh well, I will be back at some stage.
Next was Monday night where I went to the O2 (formerly Millennium Dome) with Hannah and saw Roger Waters perform. He was pretty good and played a lot of the old Pink Floyd classics as well. Twickenham was next up, where Ben and I went and watched the first day of the International Sevens, and I got to see NZ win their 3 pool games (which they sadly couldn’t continue the following
Lords Wideview
Bigger picture of the ground day in the quarter finals). It was a great day and I even got a little bit sunburnt. I know! In London!
The following day was my aforementioned painful experience. As some of you may know I am a ‘closet’ Leeds United fan….. Ok, so it’s not much of a secret. Anyway, I have followed their fortunes through the ups and the downs(more of these) since I started supporting them in 2001. This season has been my first opportunity to get to any games, and over the course of the season I have managed to get up to about 10 or so in Leeds from London. They had a magnificent season and were it not for a dodgy points deduction at the beginning, they would have been automatically promoted. As it was, they made it through the playoff semi-finals to the final to be played at Wembley.
As a member, I was lucky enough to get a ticket and got a chance to get my first taste of the new Wembley stadium. Wembley truly is an amazing stadium, quite easily the most impressive I have ever visited. Even arriving was an amazing feeling, as I was surrounded by
Me at Lords
Proof I was there! thousands and thousands of Leeds fans. In the end, the crowd was a little over 75,000 (90,000 capacity) and I would guess that 50,000 were Leeds fans, and Doncaster brought 25,000. Despite this, Leeds did not play as well as they can and lost 1-0, leaving me to walk home grieving. The pain was only second to when I walked out of the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff after the All Blacks Quarter-final last year.
The following day I got the chance to move past the previous days event by watching people act like lemmings and chase a block of cheese down a cliff. Yes, the annual Gloucester Cheese Rolling. It was appalling weather and by the end of the day, it became one big mudslide, which probably reduced the number of injuries anyway. In the first race, the winner was going so fast that he tripped near the finish line and his momentum carried him over. He had to be carried away on a stretcher. Awesome! Anyway it was some good cheap entertainment.
Next up was my week of musical entertainment, as I took Hannah to see Wicked for her first time (and my fourth) as it was
Twickenham
Nice panoramic pic - see how this one with my phone is better than the Lords one on with my camera! the last week for the star before Kerry Ellis jets off to Broadway. But wouldn’t you know it, she was sick! The understudy was pretty good as well, just not quite as awe-inspiring. Then it was Avril Lavigne with Hannah, and I managed to score us free tickets for the after party as well! Free mojitos is never a bad thing. Then Friday, it was off to Wembley for Hannah’s first time there as we watched the Foo Fighters who were just fantastic. The following week, my hookups through work just kept rolling in and Ben was the luck recipient as I took him along to a secret Coldplay gig. Great fun.
And onto my most recent trip, I went down to Canterbury and Dover with Leah. We stayed with her Mum, who is living near Canterbury as a live-in carer for a 92 year old guy with dementia. Donald was awesome. What we heard a bit of from him, and mostly from Julie was that he used to be one of the top guys in the Secret Service! He used to write speeches for the Queen, and also sat in with Prince Phillip, whom he doesn’t hold in
Wembley Way
The hordes heading to the League One playoff final: Leeds United vs Doncaster the highest of regards because he is not suited to royalty as he is a typical naval officer. He has also met Winston Churchill, who he called a very powerful character but always tried to put people at ease. He was also part of the second wave of Operation Overlord, where the British stormed Normandy and took it back from the Nazis. So a very interesting guy, who is the most British, politically correct person I have ever met as he still gives nothing away, despite knowing an incredible amount of knowledge I’m sure the tabloids would kill for! As for Canterbury and Dover, I loved Dover Castle, especially the medieval parts of the Keep. Canterbury was a niceish town and the Cathedral was huge, but you can see it is suffering a bit from wear and tear.
So that has been my busy last few weeks. It’s non-stop and looking ahead, I’m busy with more UK based stuff. I’m heading to Royal Ascot this weekend, and on Monday, I’m heading to Windsor Castle with another tourist as Cara is coming over for a couple of weeks to escape from the NZ winter. The end of July sees my
What's it like to see a crowd?
As the supporters were separated, you can see who the best supported team was. first overseas trip in a while when Leah and I head across the channel with her Mum to peruse Normandy and Belgium. The week after it’s a long weekend in Iceland, and hopefully within a couple of weeks I will have my Italian, German, and South American trips booked in as well!
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