Number 21ish: becoming a Thatter

I'm not sure which part of this one will qualify as a first exactly, but it is going in anyway because the utter exhaustion caused by this trip has directly impacted on the success of other 52s and because it was truly a one off.
I feel I should say this in a confessional whisper... I went to see Take That!

Having abjectly failed in the melee to get tickets online, despite going slightly cross-eyed staring at a constantly refreshing screen and watching progress loops go round and round and round, I gave up on Take That as a bad job. But then, months later, a friend (who is a Pet Shop Boys fan, not a Take That fan) spotted that there were still tickets available for Manchester through the main ticket seller. One small hit on a credit card later and we had booked.

The event itself was amazing - a truly massive production. There is something quite surreal about singing alongside 55,000 other people (menopausal ladies), at the top of your voice, for two and a half hours straight. I'm not a huge Take That fan (I listened to the album on my ipod for the first time on the coach on the way there) but I knew every single song. Robbie made us cry, they all made us laugh and the rain held off. It really was a great night out.

The other experience was the return coach trip which worked out to be 7 hours each way. We were collected at 11am and I walked back in through the front door at 6.45am. Message to the three ladies who decided to wander back to the coach via a bar - you'll make no friends that way...