Travelling Light Years

So, Friday was Kylie day. More on that shortly.

Still being vehicle-ly challenged, I had to kind of cobble together various favours to get myself in to Cardiff for the bus to London. And what a lovely bus it was..... a nice big comfy coach, with a big smiley man on the side, a large luggage hold and two floors of seating (I chose upstairs as although planned to read Wicked most of the way, I did think that given I am usually driving and in a car very low to the ground, being not driving and a good 15 feet higher would afford some lovely views I don't usually get. Alas it was pissing down and I could see little further than the hard shoulder of the M4). Arrival in London was swift after a very relaxed journey (read: I fell asleep twice). It took just over the 3 hours 15 mins journey time, but that was fine as I wasn't meeting David until 5.00pm so had ages to get to Twickenham.

I met with David in a pub called The Bear (how very apt. Sadly not a gay bar and no actual bears in sight .. well there was one very straight Aussie guy there who was v hairy and I would let him), had a brief drink with his fellow workers, showed off my Doctor Who set visit pix and flounced out to get the combo of buses and trains to Wembley.

Then Kylie......

Ok, so as if seeing Kylie live again wasn't exciting enough, she had added a touch of Disney, Madonna and Doctor Who to her set. Yes...... truly my four favourite things in one gig. I have to confess to crying and being a moist of crotch. For full details see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showgirl_-_The_Homecoming_Tour
But the Dance of the Cybermen section was what really got me ...... it began with a green laser searching teh stage while the bass line of the Who theme played .... then actual soundbites of Cybermen/Cyber controller from 'Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel' before her dancers all appeared in cybermen like outfits .... think the cyberwoman in Torchwood and you are spot on.
A M A Z I N G

So, after the gig, adrenaline still high, we trolled back to David and Alan's for a drink before bed. 2.00am we finally went off to kip..... until this day, I had only ever spoken to David by phone... or so we thought! Turns out we had been in the audience together at E-Fourum (now called big brothers big mouth of course....). It was great to finally meet all proper like and I am so forever in his debt for getting the ticket for me! Such a sweetie!

...to be up at 8.30 so I could back into central London to meet Richie for a few hours. We had a troll about Borough Market, a quick tour of the locations used in the Bridget Jones movies, then back to his flat to dry out as was piss soaking wet. I had just about dried out in time to go back out into the rain and get wet on the way to get the coach home.


Did I say coach? Ah! Silly me! Clearly I mean the clapped out double decker bus that megabus laid on to get us back to Cardiff.
A normal type that you see in any town and is enough of a bone shaker into town, never mind for a three hour plus trip. As people were boarding with cases and such like, teh baggage handlers were making a huge deal about people having luggage over the weight limit ... holding up the process. While technically they were within their rights as people did have over the limits stated in the T&C's, had they put on a coach with proper storage for such a journey, rather than a double decker form the 1970's with just the little enclosure that is always full of push chairs and old peoples shopping trolleys, it wouldn't have been an issue.
Again, I sat upstairs and was lucky enough to have a seat to myself. I began to read....... but one girl spent the first hour or so on her mobile, loudly. Another had a PSP type thing she was playing music videos on .. which would have been fine if she had speakers or I liked R&B.....
The driver then stopped three times as we travelled across London, for around 10 mins each time, for no apparent reason (think he may have been adjusting the pile of luggage in the push chair area), so the trip across from Victoria to the M4 took 70 mins instead of 20........
It was still windy and raining hard all the way down the M4 and a few times we were thrown from our seats by sudden braking or the wind hurling the bus about. We also had an unscheduled stop just outside Swindon (at which point I was on the verge of calling Roo and seeing if she could come and get me and I'd hitch hike back from hers on the Sunday but my phone had been on almost no power since Friday night and I had turned it off in case of a real emergency) for a good half an hour. We eventually hit Cardiff almost two hours after we were supposed to, meeting a crowd of angry faces who had expected to be on the 6.00 coach from Cardiff to London and were now going to be on the 8.00 bus...
So this left me the journey back to Senghenydd still to content with ..... but I had arranged to pick up a company car from work, so only had to get to Taffs Well which was easier ..... except all of the pool cars had been taken out for the weekend (and not all legitimately from what I can gather .... but I may be wrong there). So now had exhausted all of my cash and was still a few miles short of home. Luckily, the very lovely Gareth in our news team gave me a lift to the foot of the village so I only had a 30 min walk from there .... which surprised me as I thought it would only take 10 mins........
So at almost 10.00pm I got home ....... damp, tired and broke.