Travels with my mother (part 1)

I had the (somewhat) recent fortune to take two trips with my mother. Everyone should travel with their mother. It's an experience. On these trips I learnt my mum would travel practically nowhere. Not that she doesn't have a sense of adventure, it just needs to be coaxed out of her. Thank goodness for Take That and Wimbledon then.

Take That
I've never been a massive Take That fan. Sure, I like them, but I'm not obsessive over them. I didn't really like any of their songs when I was a teenager, until Back For Good. I remember watching the video for that on The Chart Show (remember The Chart Show?) And I liked Never Forget, but then Robbie left, and they did that awful How Deep is Your Love cover (to be fair any cover of that song would be terrible, as it is a terrible song) and it all went pear shaped.

I wasn't here when the documentary came out that got them back together as a four. Likewise, when their first new singles were coming out I was in Singapore, so I really did miss the hype and what not. I liked The Circus ok, and I saw the show on TV and it looked really great. All the same I wouldn't say I'm a massive fan of them.

Mum likes the new stuff a lot so when the Progress tour was announced I thought it would be a nice Christmas present to get her tickets to go. So on the day they came out I got up early and sat with three computers on the go and got tickets. Like I mentioned before I actually got three sets of tickets because Caroline, who is obsessed with Gary Barlow, didn't realise the tickets for Dublin went on sale at 8.00am, not 9.00am. And then Karen (David's) wrote back to my text from the night previously and said she did want to go, so the two I got for mum and me were sold on and I got three for us. I did feel a bit bad though to hear of diehard fans who didn't get tickets that day and there's me with eight, bought on three separate transactions.

Anyway, eventually June rolled around and we were headed to Dublin. At times Dublin felt like it was taking part in a record attempt for the world's biggest hen party. Feather boas, group outfits, drunk women, you know the deal. We gave ourselves nicknames for our non-existant t-shirts. Mum became Duke of Ed. She had every possible map, timetable and info about the concert. Heck, she even brought packed sandwiches for the way back. Karen is 'Got Your Ticket?' due to an unfortunate lost ticket incident. My name? Well because we were at the back of the stadium I wanted to bring binoculars, you know, so we could see their faces. Too bad we couldn't find them and all we had was this:

A monocular. So I became Nelson.

 So what of the concert? Well, of course it was fantastic. Robbie's bit was my favourite. He is such a showman and had the audience in the palm of his hand.

This was during Rock DJ. I enjoyed that one.

I really liked when they showed the crowds in front of  them. I bet Robbie thought he'd never play to as many people again.

Quite the set too. Now, are your people involved in 2012? Because that would be a good idea.

Just a short week later I was off travelling with mother again. Honestly, the last mother-daughter trip was c. 1989 to Penzance and now two come along at once.