Carmen at the O2 23-May-10
O2 go to the O2
About 40 club members and friends did just that on Sunday 23rd. of May. Some months ago Gill Hare had kindly offered to book tickets to see Carmen at that wonderful arena. We took her up on the offer and Gill went ahead and bought the tickets. She also arranged for a coach to pick us up
due to the difficulties of travelling into London by train during the weekend. Normally for us Upminsterites a visit to the O2 would be a doddle but not for us the C2C and Jubilee line on this glorious day. By the way, if you have never been to the O2, it is worth a trip even if you not going to see a show. Anyway I digress. We were to be picked up opposite the BP garage in Corbets Tey Road and the car park opposite was conveniently open all day and free. Janet and I arrived early with our friends and then the doubts kicked in, were we at the right car park, was it the one down the road? Do you ever have those thoughts? All weekend I‟d been worried that I had not ordered enough tickets, I couldn‟t actually remember ordering six and Ray and Gill were on holiday so I couldn‟t check up. Anyway in true Rotarian Spirit I put on a brave face and assured everyone we were in the right place and I had booked the tickets. It was only when I saw a couple of other equally bothered Rotarians that I began to relax and thought one down one to go. Finally we were all assembled under one small tree sheltering from the sun when Ray emerged with a fistful of tickets in envelopes. “Here you are, George and friends”. My heart sank only four tickets were in the envelope. I tip toed quickly up to Gill who was equally worried when I said I only had four tickets (it is a worry when you book outings for a lot of people) and then she told Ray that my two were in a separate envelope. Internal panic over, the adventure could now begin.
T
he coach arrived and we all boarded. Just as I was settling in to my seat my left
breast tingled, I assumed it was through excitement at the thought of the day to come and the lunch I was about to devour. But no, it was my phone which I quickly answered – “G‟day Mate What are you doing?”. My good friend and publisher Colin was not where he should be – on the coach with wife Carol. Looking out of the window I saw Gill frantically punching numbers into her mobile. I guessed what she doing so I quickly passed my phone over to her and she was informed that Colin and Carol would meet us at the O2. Problem solved and off we went, through the lanes to Aveley then on to the A13 straight into London. I have driven that route hundreds of times (not the A13 bit) and never realised how pretty and interesting it is. Being so high up in the coach we had a great view of the country- side. The A13 was equally interesting. There has been so much development of the road system that it took me quite a while to recognise some of the landmarks that I was familiar with way back when I used to drive into London. As a part time Geographer I should have known that we needed to get south of the Thames in order to drive up to the O2 so it was a bit of surprise when we turned into a very busy Blackwall Tunnel. It did not take us too long from that point to get to the arena and witness our lady driver manoeuvre our coach backwards straight between the two white lines with the greatest of ease. Lets be honest most of us have trouble parking in Tesco or some other car park, shuffling backward and forward trying to get our vehicle equi-distant between the lines. This lady did it with such ease that Peter Fulham was quite overcome with admiration.
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