A-ma-zing!!

Sorry if this is becoming boring but…Strictly was blooming fantastic. I’ve set this to post after tonight’s results show because the audience were sworn to secrecy about the result!

We arrived at Wembley about 4.30 and queued for a short time before taking our seats which, although not fantastic, gave us a good enough view. We were fortunate enough to have a screen that we could see the dancers on, although we had to watch the group dances on the floor as we missed stuff otherwise! I was sceptical about the Saturday show being transmitted live but it is! The fill in bits for Sunday are filmed before and after the Saturday show is transmitted and the opening group dance was filmed in advance of the live show – which is obvious when you think about it as they would never be able to do the costume changes in time. On the live show when you see the training segments the crew are busy clearing after the last act and getting ready for the next dancers – it is so slick!

And then there’s Bruce! He is so much better without the stupid scripted autocue gags, he came on before filming started and did a few gags completely of the cuff – let me tell you, doddery he is not! He sang and danced as well which was a Brucie bonus, I take my hat off to him!

Anyway, I think most of you know that Sunday is filmed on Saturday night, so we got to see who was voted off and now you know as well! Russell was so humble in losing, the final dance actually lasted two or three minutes which you don’t get to see on the TV and all of the dancers really support each other all the way through.

I’m not a great fan of Il Divo but they were fantastic as well – what you saw on the TV tonight was what we saw – just one take and the same for James Morrison & Jessie J! I sort of hoped that Robbie Williams might have turned up to see his pal Robbie Savage but it wasn’t to be

Who do I think will win the whole thing? I think young Chelsee might just nick it from Harry – she was amazing last night!

Oh nearly forgot  - the judges! We were all told to boo and cheer as necessary, but Craig got by far the biggest cheer when he was introduced, he seemed quite shocked!! Craig and Bruno were hilarious together camping it up – I don’t know if you saw them dancing at the end of the show – if not then you missed a treat!

So would I go again – hell yes!! It was fantastic entertainment, my hands hurt from clapping so much and, apart from the fact that we chose to stay overnight, it was excellent value for money at £20 per ticket which, apart from the VAT, all goes to Children In Need.

Needles & Pins

Ah, I see you all thinking this is going to be a crafty post, well you’d be wrong! It’s been almost five weeks now since I’ve been able to do any hand sewing or crochet – that simple holding action between thumb and for finger seems to have been the trigger for the dreadful pain I was having in my shoulder, arm & hand. However I have now had two acupuncture sessions as part of my physiotherapy and I think I can feel an improvement – I’m desperate to be able to do something of an evening, but am resisting the temptation to try.

I have made a few of the purses that I have shown you before and have decided to try to build up a stock and sell them, so I’ve decided not to post pictures at the moment. I’ve really appreciated the comments that people have left about the ones I’ve already shown and I think that’s sort of given me the courage to try to sell some.

In other news, John and I are off to see Strictly Come Dancing at Wembley tonight – excited doesn’t begin to describe how I’m feeling! Dress code is glamorous which makes it even more exciting! I’ve been driving my work mates made with my countdown to the big day and yesterday one of them said to me ‘do me a favour and call my phone, there’s something wrong with my display’. When I rang him he’d changed his ringtone to the Strictly theme tune! His deadpan delivery took me right in – there was of course nothing wrong at all with his phone!

I’m equally as excited at the prospect of going to IKEA tomorrow on the way home – sadly we don’t have one close to us so we have to take advantage when we travelling that way. I plan to stock up on candles and tea lights and who knows what else takes my fancy – last time we went we came back with more stuff than we knew what to do with!!

Lucky me!!

Something a little different this week. When it was announced that London had won the 2012 Olympics, John & Matt volunteered to help with whatever was needed, they heard nothing so assumed they wouldn’t be wanted but, when we got back from holiday, John had an email inviting him for an interview for ‘transportation’. I jokingly said that he would be driving one of those electric carts that you see at such events while he was convinced he’d be driving a coach!! (totally unrealistic of course). Anyway, the interview was Thursday at the Excel Centre, close to the Olympic village.

We both took the day off and drove down to London and all was well until we got right up close to Excel and found it was nigh on impossible to work out how to get in! Eventually we found a kind security guard who we followed to the car park and he showed us where to go.

Before we left home we had a debate over what John should wear. We knew it was to be a one-and-a-half hour interview and he said he ought to wear a suit – who am I to argue? Well, the interview turned out to be a short film which was viewed with about 30 other people, then a chat in small groups afterwards. He found out that they 10,000 drivers!! 10,000. They were needed to ferry VIPs and dignitaries from three points in London to the games and they’ll have a fleet of 3 series BMWs!! So now we wait to hear, apparently people who were interviewed in March are only just being told!

As a special treat, John let me go to the new Westfield Shopping Centre at Stratford – I don’t normally like big centres like that but this one is different, some lovely shops and really open and airy. There weren’t to many people there on Thursday afternoon but I’d imagine it will be heaving at weekends. We started to make our way home about 4 o’clock to beat the worst of the traffic, but boy were we in for a surprise! The promised rain fell and the drive home was a nightmare. Standing water in places on the A12 with more rain falling, I’m just glad it wasn’t me driving!

We’re getting to the reason for the title now! When we got home I checked my emails and there was one from Ticket Master headed ‘Your Strictly Come Dancing Application. I’d forgotten that I’d applied for tickets for the Wembley show which is a special for Children in Need, I knew it was a draw but I’d been successful, as it’s for charity we have paid to go but I’m really looking forward to it – I just hope we will be able to have a good view!

We spoke to Matt today as well, normally we phone him at 9am our time which is early evening for him, but he sent a text saying that he would call us at about 11pm his time – we thought he’d probably be out for the evening and when another text came through saying change of plan, I’ll you about 2am we thought he’d had a really good night out!! But we were wrong! He’d been at work! He’s had a couple of random days work this week and this one was dismantling an exhibition and clearing the space for another, if he’s to stay for much longer he will need more work as he’s running out of money, trouble is he has to pay 30% tax which he’ll get back when he leaves but it makes a deep dent in what he earns.

Only one bag made this weekend, the neck/arm/hand combo is still causing me grief but I’m going to have acupuncture on Wednesday – oh how I hope it works. Three weeks of agony and discomfort is enough I think and I’m really missing sewing of an evening, more than I ever thought I would.