So I’m finally in some sort of mood where I’m willing to start, at least, talking about the trip to London I’ve just had. I’m peculiar and if I’m not in the mood to write some big essay like this is gonna be then I won’t do it. Let’s have at it then.

I woke up on the Monday at stupid o’clock in the morning so I could catch the bus two hours later from the bus station. I got there at half seven with the bus due to depart at eight, which was clearly a good thing considering what happened. The company I was travelling with, megabus, stated that the bus would depart from stand 30 however our bus station only has 21 stands. Turns out by stand 30 they actually meant the express departure section upstairs, who’d have thought it eh?

So now I’m on the bus down to London and I’m all by myself for two hours until we pull into Sheffield Meadowhall and pick up Hannah who I hadn’t seen in ages. From then on, the other 5ish hours weren’t so bad. We played Monopoly on my DS, which came up with amusing phrases such as “The rabbit is out of the top hat,” which we took as a euphemism for someone with their flies undone.

By 2pm we were getting a little antsy as we were meant to have been in Victoria coach station by then but stupidly the driver hadn’t gone the way he was meant to through London (I think someone had convinced him to drop them off somewhere away from the normal route) and we ended up going round in circles. I did however see the delightful road name, Percy Passage even though it was more of an alleyway than a road.

We got in about 50 mins late and then proceeded to throw the plan we had in the bin. As per tradition we wanted to get Tim a Thorntons plaque with some writing on it and I’d noticed that there was one in Victoria Station. Turns out it was just a small stall and they didn’t do iced things of any description. We then headed to Covent Garden as we knew there was a Thorntons there however when we got there the only plaque they had was one that was pre-iced, which is clearly no good. AQA told us the location of another Thorntons on Oxford Street though not whereabouts on Oxford Street, and it’s one hell of a long street. Anyway, after a bit of a trek we got there and they had plaques, hooray, so we got one iced with, “wear the right shirt,” owing to Tim complaining to us that he wore the wrong one for his Aus DVD recording.

Clearly this had to reach him before the show so we went to The Bloomsbury Theatre. We picked up our tickets for the night and then asked the buy behind the desk if they could get it to Tim beforehand, which is usually a safe bet as quite often they can. Turns out that tonight they couldn’t and they suggested taking it to the stage door. At this point a lovely old man, who looked like security, offered to take us down there so we followed him with every intention of leaving it with the people at the stage door. Oh no, that’s not what happened though.

We got there and this man told us to go and sign in and get backstage passes so we obliged and found ourselves behind the scenes. We could hear piano so we headed towards the stage and stood and Tim playing ‘You Grew On Me’ from one of the wings for a bit before Hannah texted John, Tim’s stage manager, explaining what had happened and where we were. John, bless his heart, despite being ever so rushed, was lovely and told us to put our stuff for Tim in the spare dressing room and we dropped off our suitcases there too. We’d also gotten him a plaque too (”To John, we love you too, x”) and we gave it to him at this point and then we skedaddled back to the bit outside the box office to wait for people from the forum meet-up.

Seeing as the meet-up spread across both of the dates I wasn’t entirely sure who was coming on what date to be honest, though I did have a fair idea. Turns out that I only met two other people that day, Alena, who I’ve met a couple of times before and Shell. Both of them were absolutely lovely and I really enjoyed just talking to them.  Lizzie was also meant to be coming that night but she was late and I didn’t see her about in the interval so it was essentially just the five of us.

Now, let’s go on to the actual show. Tim had been and stated that this would be something flamboyant to contrast with his other DVD however it seems that all “flamboyant” meant was the addition of a light show. This isn’t something that’s particularly fantastic if you have photosensitive epilepsy, like me, or if you’re photophobic, like Kirsty was at the time, and it’s just rude not to mention it anywhere. I hate going to shows that use strobe lights without warning the audience first. Apparently it’s not a legal requirement to do so but I woulda thought that audience safety would be paramount at shows.

Anyway, despite this, Tim was fantastic. I saw a couple of things I’d never seen live, such as Mitsubishi Colt and F Sharp played on the piano. The addition to his Tony the Fish routine tickled me as did the new lyrics to If You Really Loved Me - the joke works again! Canvas Bags was a bit too flashy for my liking but that was probably down to the stupid amount of flashing lights used in it.

I think the thing people will remember most from that night is the recital of Angry (Feet). Tim had nearly gotten to the end of it and then he just burst into a fit of giggles. He tried several attempts to get back into it, each failing for the same reason, before declaring that the poem is like masturbation; once you stop you can’t get going again. He did, however, get going again and swiftly finished it off before moving on to the next song, which seemed very fitting considering which one it was.

Once the show was over, Second Encore and all, we went and hunted down Pete, Tim’s sound guy, to give him his present of a chocolate tractor, which is something that’s very important for the next blog so pay attention and then we headed out to the lobby and attempted to steal a poster but received a stern telling-off from mid-life-crisis-guy, who we suspect is the manager of the place yet has seemingly no social skills. I swear anything he said to us he could have put more politely at least ten different ways. How he’s managed to get that job with an attitude like that I don’t know.

Anyway, headed back down to the reception to wait for Tim, even if it would just be a hug before he disappeared home to sleep, but John came and took us on to the stage while he went and got our suitcases from backstage. I swear I’ve never had such an urge to play piano in my life. I resisted though, and whilst we were waiting for John, Tim appeared, followed not long after by John and our suitcases and then we all headed out into the reception, nattered for a bit and then headed to our places of sleep.

I’m not entirely sure on details of what happened though I do recall Tim trying to steal a poster for Hannah, ripping it and then saying he’d get big Edinburgh ones for us cos he’s nice like that. I guess that’s what happens when my brain’s tired, memories get fuzzy so I guess that’s about as far as I can go with Monday. I’ll write up Tuesday at some point but not right now considering I’ve just written close to 1,400 words.