MY WEEK plus BIG CROWDS

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to my second post.

This is in two parts, MY WEEK and BIG CROWDS.

MY WEEK
On Monday, Claudia and I went to the Royal Festival Hall at London's SouthBank Centre to see the 2011 London Lord Mayor's Appeal Concert, featuring classical music and singing by a variety of choirs. We both enjoyed it.

On Wednesday, I had my first NAS module session at Remploy, we tackled the Vocational Module which looks at what I'm good at and difficulties and challenges in the workplace. It went well. We finish this module this week. The eight modules will take us a minimum of sixteen weeks. Keep you updated on the modules and what they entail.

On Thursday, we went to church, we've been going to Christ Church, Blackfriars Road, London since November 2006 and we were married there a year later, we go twice a week, Thursday lunchtimes and Sunday mornings. We help the vicar there and are the PCC. I also am an authorised Lay Minister there too.

On Friday, we visited Claudia's parents in Dagenham, Essex and helped put up a shed in the garden. It was a nice day.

Yesterday, we went to the Lyttelton Auditorium at the National Theatre, to hear Simon Russell Beale read the Book of Revelation from the King James Bible, which celebrated it's 400th anniversary this year. It took Mr. Russell Beale sixty-nine minutes to recite, very enjoyable.

Today, we went to Tate Modern to view a exhibition of works by German artist Gerhard Ritcher. It was very interesting, but very busy. It's on until the 8th January, so we have time to make a return visit.

That Was MY WEEK.

BIG CROWDS
With me going to things where there are a lot of people, my subject for this post is BIG CROWDS. How I deal with this, is first to have someone with you. Second, to think through where you're going, how you're going get there and can I get home afterwards. Even with the best laid plans, things can go wrong.

Two years ago, a friend of my mother had two tickets for the NFL American Football game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the New England Patriots at Wembley Stadium.

Claudia and I decided that we'd go just to experience the new Wembley Stadium. We thought this through and with our knowledge of the Underground, American Football and Wembley Stadium, we decided on the following course.

1) We could get to Wembley on the Underground.
2) We knew that with eighty thousand plus people that even though it would be a straight run home on the Underground, it would be very late when we got home, so we opted to book an affordable hotel near to the Stadium for an overnight stay.
3) We tried to get to the Stadium a good hour before kick-off to get programmes, souvenirs and to our seats to get settled.

All went well until we got to Harrow-on-the Hill, to find our hotel, we spend an hour going round in circles trying find, which we did eventually. Then after a hurried change of clothing, we set off for the game at Wembley. We arrived at Wembley with about ninety minutes to kickoff, but the time it took us to get through the turnstiles into the Stadium, there was about a hour to go. We were in the gods at Wembley, we were in the highest possible row. We had no chance of any souvies or programmes, all we came back with were free flags that the Buccaneers (who were the home team for the game) were giving out. At the end of the game, which New England won 35-7. We took an hour to reach the Underground station and another hour to reach our hotel. In the middle of the night, an fire alarm went off at our hotel and we were told we had to pay for breakfast, we bartered with the fire alarm, the hotel relented.

Lessons here:
1) check where you're sitting at the venue
2) print out a map of your chosen hotel
3) leave plenty of  time to get goodies
4) BE YOURSELF

That's all for now

See you next time

Chris.