Well this year is just non stop folks, it's just full on from month to month as the adventures of Kevlar & Mrs. P. continue and it's back to London for our 3rd visit this year but before that it was UK Foo Fighters and a stay in Cardiff city centres newest hotel with a very high room and a very friendly guy called Ashley who was our receptionist and bar person. We think he took a shine to me, it was "Hi Kevin, what can i get you love?" and "Hi babes, i'll check on that for you", felt a bit weird but he was harmless. The UK Foo's were amazing as always and we've found a new game to play while at their gig in The Tramshed, how many coffee tequila shots can you down before the concert finishes, i actually lost count but my trainers paid the price as i had coffee tequila stains all over the front of them as the shots were up to the top of the glasses.
Our view from our room overlooking a grey and grubby looking Cardiff.
Two of our usual Tramshed giant buckets of beer for us please.
Our night time view overlooking a dark and grubby looking Cardiff....Cardiff is grubby no matter what time of day it is.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME......yep and 57 this year. Don't doctors talk bo**ocks. They say to exercise, we do, they say to eat healthy, we do, they say not to smoke, we don't, they say to drink in moderation.......OK that one we can pass on. I feel worse now than ever before. I cycle 8 miles a day, we walk over 10,000 steps a day, i can't even remember the year of when we fried something at home to eat, i'm 9 stone exactly so weigh the same as i did when i was 18 and....get this....i'm now buying kids jeans size 13~14 years old, not joking, that's true. So folks, ignore the doctors and all the health advice nonsense, eat lard sandwiches, drink like George Best, never get up off the sofa apart from to eat and find a job that allows you to work from bed. Anyway....anti health advert over and i was a very lucky boy this birthday, i had so much off Sian, she really did think outside the box and put so much thought in to the presents i had no idea of what i was having and then Sian topped it all off with a surprise visit to my favourite restaurant "Giggling Squid" i clapped and giggled like an excited school girl....yes you did read that right.
A couple of pre meal drinkies.
I can honestly say this actually matches the flavours of Gordon Ramsay's Lucky Cat restaurant so save yourself some money and go to Giggling Squid instead. IT'S SO GOOD. Thank you my beautiful girl, i loved it xxxx
And off to London we go to see Lady GaGa. So i bought whatever tickets i could get when they went on sale and these seats if they were any further back we would have been sat on the roof of The O2, we were at the very back. There were 3 seats together but they wouldn't allow me to book just the 2 so i bought all 3 and sold the third on at a small profit, not like crazy profit but enough that our tickets then worked out at just £20 each, BOOM, BACK OF THE NET!
We were staying back at the London City airport Travelodge and that i think is now our go to hotel for London trips, easy connections to central London and cheap and newly refurbed. Before the concert we had a full on day booked in. First indoor skydiving at IFly in the O2 at 3.30pm, then shuffleboard straight after that at Boom Battle Bar at 4pm till 5pm and then straight from there to the Amex VIP lounge at 5pm for doors open at 5.30pm, so as you can see it was full on.
Sian and me, I'm supporting her in the IFly tunnel.
Then i went solo.
BUGGER! You guessed right? Yeah....that's not me...unfortunately due to the damage i have on my left shoulder i wasn't allowed to do it which i was gutted about as this had been booked for the both of us for over a year but my shoulder has got progressively worse very quickly over the past 5 weeks so no indoor skydiving for me.........SHIT! Sian did amazing. You usually get only 1 minute of fly time but because we were the only 2 people booked in Sian got my time as well but they then gave her 5 mins fly time instead of 2 mins. She said that it works every muscle in your body just trying to stay stable over the fan, she was aching for a couple of days after.
On to shuffleboard. We love a game of shuffleboard, when we emigrate to Canada we've said we're not having any furniture in our living room just a shuffleboard 😂
And wouldn't you know it, it's all day happy hour with 2 for 1 cocktails YAAAAHOOOOO! Unfortunately that excitement was short lived as i lost another tournament of shuffleboard to Sian, this is getting ridiculous!
I reckon Sian's spiking my drinks, Sian forgot that loser gets a nasty shot, YES!
I'm sure Sian is practicing up in our attic, there's space for a shuffleboard up there, I'll have to investigate.
After getting my ass kicked...AGAIN...it's time for drinkies in the VIP Lounge before the concert.
Our selfies are a thing of class and beauty and so serious on the way to the VIP Lounge 😄
Good god, that Rohypnol Sian slipped me so she could win shuffleboard looks like it still has a hold over me.
Sian putting her Paw up for GaGa.
The VIP lounge was great, lots of room, very comfortable and Sian met Hannah Walters, Stephen Grahams wife and had a little chat with her. Like me Sian doesn't want to bother celebs with selfies even though Hannah offered a picture to be taken but Sian declined explaining Hannah was out for a night out and didn't want to bother her for a picture, i think celebs like that, that's why i don't ask, as long as i know i've met them i don't need a picture. They most probably will talk more about someone not wanting a selfie than the hundreds who do ask for selfies.
Sian said she smelt wonderful.
And after a few freebie drinkies which was great as they were £8.50 a pint otherwise and a woman gave me half a bottle of rose wine due to the fact she couldn't drink it all before entering the arena it was time to get to our seats.
JEBUS! Where's the oxygen! We were way back but great view of the stage and arena and the sound was perfect, you could hear every instrument and every word clearly. As we sat there waiting for the concert to begin you can see the stage is set out like an opera house and Lady GaGa is above the stage on a screen scribbling on a piece of paper with a quill to the sound of famous operatic music, not sure of the names of the songs but we knew them and then the lights go down and GaGa starts to speak and BOOM, your off. Now then at this point i have to say, it was just none stop for over 2 1/2 hours, it wasn't a concert, it was a theatrical mind blowing performance with costumes, narration, choreography and an amazing stage setting with light show. I had checked the setlist before we went and i only knew 9 songs out of 31 but it didn't matter, as i said this wasn't a concert with just a singer and a band it was a full on overload of the senses. I've seen many of the greats in concert, Bowie, Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Foo Fighters, G n R, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, 5 Star, to name but a few and i can honestly say Lady GaGa's concert is the best thing i've ever seen, it was amazing and her voice is just pitch perfect and strong. The only person that has sounded as good as her, and this is weird, is Simon Le Bon, you would think it's the CD of the song playing they sound that good.
Knew i should have brought our climbing shoes.
Excuse the videos but my phone is old and not good with bright lights but the sound is good enough.
Just a feel of the lightshow.
And like all the other concerts we've seen, before you know it, it's over. Would we go to see her again, without a doubt as it was awesome to see.
NOW THEN.....there was a down side during this concert....next to me was a young woman who was obviously a social media user. She was singing loud and proud which is fine but every time i looked over she was filming herself singing Lady GaGa's songs and not taking any notice of the concert, WHY? For one thing her singing was awful, secondly Lady GaGa is on the stage in front of you and thirdly cause it was so dark where we were sitting you could only see her nose and eyes on her screen, it was doing my nut in, i wanted to snatch the phone and stamp on it BUT i did get my own back even though at the time i didn't know it.
I wanted to use the toilet but because we were the last row in the house i stepped over the back of my seat and walked behind the seats not to disturb the others in our row. As i walked along there was a white plastic rubbish bag on the floor that i trod over it on the way to the toilet and again on the way back. Then on the second visit to the toilet on the way back i kicked the bag to the end of the aisle where we were sat so no one else would stand on it or trip on it. As the concert ended and the lights went up i could see the woman next to me looking for something, she turns to me and asked "You haven't seen my coat have you". Guess what.....I'd only been trampling over her white coat and kicked it down the aisle at the back of a dirty walkway. It did feel quite good though when i told Sian and Sian just burst out laughing. Fun times as always with us.
And that was our visit over, it was just an overnight stay this time for the concert and for Sian to get some Levi jeans from the Levi outlet store in the O2 the next day and as always i bought Sian a Lady GaGa tour t~shirt but this one was really nice design and really good quality and it looked great on her.
And finally.....Squidly
Squidly fast asleep in her play tunnel.....
Squidly fast asleep with her head in her food bowl.......
And a squid outfit that we're going to buy for Squidly 😂 that bunny doesn't look happy.
And that's it for this update folks, next stop Bath and Greg Davies.
So until then......
Serve All, Love All, Peace All......Kevlar, Mrs. P. & Squidly Out!
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