Where to start?

At the beginning I suppose! Saturday didn’t start off quite as expected…


As you can see, the tube was closed. And then it started to rain…so being housewives let loose for the weekend, we got lazy, and instead of just getting on with the walk, we hailed a black cab.

But being that the cab had windows, and seeing that we wanted to hit Primark sometime over the weekend, we yelled ‘Stop!’ when we passed a store on Oxford Street, figuring that we’d only be delayed on our journey to the British History Museum by an hour or so…

At three that afternoon Cass and I agreed the museum was out the window, so we finished with a drink in the late sunshine (milkshake in my case).

Of course it began to rain the minute we decided to get up again. And what’s a girl to do when carrying half a dozen shopping bags? Hail a black cab of course!

By 7 that evening we were in the Hotel bar to meet Cass’s friend, Janet. But it duly started chucking down, and as we didn’t want frizzy hair, we ate in the bar.

At 10 the rain had stopped and Janet and Cass agreed to go on to another bar, this time in Soho. But I wasn’t so sure and tried to beg off. Fortunately for me this wasn’t so easy, as Cass said she wouldn’t go without me. And this was her weekend, so I agreed, for an hour.

But an hour isn’t so long, and we’d only just sat down with our drinks. Five minutes later Janet’s boyfriend, Paul, turned up and announced we were meeting his cousin and his girlfriend in a club up the road (saying ‘we’ is pushing it – it was Paul and Janet who were going, but Janet wanted us to tag along, and Cass said she’d go home with me if I left, so we went with them).

At first it was too noisy, and I was greatly tempted to have a drink, but I worried over how drunk I might get (as lost in London, drunk, on a Saturday night, wouldn’t have been the brightest thing for this middle-aged housewife to do). Then we got a table. Then it was kicking out time. And 3 in the morning.

Piccadilly is a surreal place at 4 on a Sunday morning. People and cars everywhere (though no black cabs) but all the shops are closed, office windows are dark, the Tubes still, and the only noise are the car horns and peoples’ voices. Twenty years ago, when I lived there, it felt like the middle of the night, but not this time. I suppose I could put it down to what a great night I’d had, or maybe it really was different.

Cass was then hungry – and I’ll make mention here of Cass’s appetite, as I’m still stunned! She a size 8 (in US sizes, I think that’s a 4), but she eats loads! Actually, NOT loads, but I mean compared to me. Every few hours she’s hungry, can’t start the day without breakfast, and eats in bed. Life’s a bitch and I’m fat.

But back to Cass being hungry, we tried to get room service, I even went down to reception, but it wasn’t to be. So Cass had to make do with her box of Pringles, and I called it a day night as the sun came up.

I’m being a tad optimistic and sun is overstating it. It rained most of Sunday, which is how I got Cass to the British Museum for midday. Poor thing had a hangover, and I dragged her around Egyptian sarcophaguses, and Roman sculptures.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested, she was. Just a tad weary.

Next up was changing some of the clothes from the previous day’s shopping (just one item each) but Cass and I were overpowered by the lure of clothing only a third of the price they are here…

Several bags of shopping later, Cass announced she had to have food. Preferably grease.

Good grief I’m glad I don’t drink, as I blame alcohol for making Cass think she wanted to eat at BurgerKing. Thank god we couldn’t find one. And I steadfastly refused to eat at KFC. That left McDonalds, and sadly there was one within sight.

Actually it wasn’t so bad, and at least we were sitting down at last.

We had to dash back to the hotel to prepare for the festival (and of course we had shopping bags again, and it was raining again, so we had to hail…).

We left for the festival at 5, just as the heavens really let loose.

In the words of that singer chap from Aerosmith, ‘God cried because we rocked!’ At least I think that’s what he said.

How to describe the festival? Busy. Wet. Bloody noisy. Muddy. Chilly. And it’s the first time I’ve seen a queue for the toilets a couple of HUNDRED people long.

You have no idea how glad I am that I didn’t need the loo that night (not once!!!. Of course I did deny myself liquids from 3.

And it was fun.

I can say that now, though I do seem to recall thinking a few other things when there, but by the time we were walking home I had realised all the irritations are what’s helped make the memory so fun.

Afterall, I now know that dreadlocks smell something chronic when wet. And I now know what’s in those cups you see people throwing up in the air at these things (use your imagination with the loo queues so long!). I know that crowds don’t like people who bring a brolly to these things (BTW, I didn’t, I was in a delightful blue pac-a-mac, cringing whenever the cameras swung around for fear I looked like a giant coloured condom in amongst a sea of black clad rockers).

Sadly I only recognised two songs from the three acts we saw over the six hours. But at least I can say I’ve seen Jet, Chris Connell (Connelly? Either way, he was the cleanest cutest looking man there)



and Aerosmith in concert.


And like I said, it was fun!

In fact the weekend as a whole, was sheer bloody brilliant!

Tomorrow I might tell you about the outrageous conversations of Saturday evening, the weirdo who hugged me at the concert, or how the BH and I missed each other.