We had been to see Olly Murs and after a day of exploring M&M world, enthusing over the Gruffalo puppet show in Hamleys and a long trying on session in H&M followed by lots of dancing to a great show from the cheeky Essex boy, it's fair to say we were already feeling a little drained.
We'd been warned to leave the gig ASAP and get straight on a train because of the forecast snow for that evening and that's what we did, well tried to do. There's always a queue into the station after a concert at the O2 but when no one is going in, calling it a queue seems like an understatement! I've been told many times that snow doesn't settle in London, which is apparently due to the large amount of pollution in the air. I'm awful at geography and can't tell you how factual that justification is but I can verify, speaking from first hand experience, that it is definitely possible for snow to settle in London.
Even after being herded like cattle and discovering that the jubilee line had been suspended due to connection problems I did not feel worried. We were waiting for a bus to Stratford, assuming that from there we'd be able to get a train to Chelmsford and get picked up from there no problem. Of course this wasn't the case! the whole situation started to remind me of the Titanic, obviously the situation was nothing compared to that but there were thousands of people crammed together all trying to get on some very small buses, not really sure of what is going on. Eventually it became clear that we were not going to be one of the people to get on a bus and I was becoming increasingly more aggravated by some girls of a similar age to me, wearing short dresses and heels, shouting at the police man "we're only girls, let us on, it's not fair if these men get on before us', I was very close to giving them a rant about feminism and how girls are a lot stronger than men most of the time and the fact they were cold was nothing to do with their gender but much more to do with the little amount of clothes they were wearing in February! I was feeling very sorry for the police who were trying to control the impatient crowds, I was rapidly losing my faith in the human race. We spoke to a very lovely police woman who confirmed we would have missed the last train and were unlikely to get on a bus any time soon, she advised us to go into the O2 where there was free hot drinks and to just wait.
I'm often referred to as one of the Mums of the group with the name 'Mummy Trina' and I was feeling a huge amount of sympathy for the real mums taking care of their children in this situation as I was panicking about the fact we had to stay the night in London but trying to stay calm for my friends, with one unable to contact her mum, one being screamed at on the phone by her uncle, one who is prone to fainting and another worrying about a morning shift at McDonalds! Luckily, we're great friends and the night turned out to be more of a great story to tell rather than a living nightmare. A few of us slept under a table, others had far more sugars than are healthy and I broke a chair. Yes, I can now say that I've broken a chair in the VIP lounge of the O2. I'm not proud, it was extremely embarrassing.
From this experience I've discovered that I have a very flexible neck, which my friends think is probably because I play the violin but I'd fallen asleep on a chair (not the broken one) and my friends were forced to wake me up at 6 due to a fear that I'd broken my neck. I'm not very good without sleep and I was very very grumpy, snapping at everyone and thinking it would much more beneficial to stay and sleep more. Thankfully, no one listened to me and we were on a bus by half 6 and then on a train back to Billericay at half 8 and home by half 10!
Olly Murs is very good live and I had a great day in London with my best friends so honestly, if I went back in time and was told what would happen after seeing Olly Murs I would still go and do everything in the same way!
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