A few months back I had a notification from Ticketmaster of a pre-sale event that was happening at The Royal Albert Hall.

Now, going to the Royal Albert Hall was one of the things I wanted to do on my 50 things before I am 50 and so this was quite of interest to me.

I immediately rang the hubby and asked if he wanted me to book a couple of tickets. He was very interested and so I went back to the site and secured two tickets, albeit it in the Gods as that was all that was left.

I messaged my Sister (in law) Angela and told her all about it, just in case she was interested. She managed to get two tickets for her and her lovely husband, Gordon.

All dressed up and ready to go

We planned to make a full day of it with some food and drinks and waited for the day to roll around.

So, what exactly were we waiting to see?

A night filled with the music of Prince, played by a symphonic orchestra. Literally all my dreams come true in one night!

Eventually the day rolled around and the hubby and I got a taxi to the train station at lunchtime. Baby Bear had agreed to pick us up on the return at around 0030.

First Class Baby

Although I am a seasoned first class traveller, the hubby had never experienced it so was a little excited when we took our seats around 1230. Free hot drinks, snacks and lovely reclining seats and he was in his element.

Commissioned headpiece

An hour later and we arrived at St Pancras. Hopping on the tube to Tottenham Court Road, we walked for around 20 minutes to the pub where my sister and her husband were waiting.

The Coal Hole is a fabulous Nicholsons pub. It is situated in what was originally the cellar of the Strand Hotel and has the atmosphere like you wouldn’t believe.

Old Fashioned pub

Tie that up with fabulous food at great prices and you have a real winner. Given that it is situated 2 minutes from Covent Garden.

It was really tough to decide what I wanted to eat. Being mainly carb free, I almost went for the mixed grill; however as this was a special event, I decided to have the Chicken, Ham and Cheese pie with mash potato.

Well, if I am going to blow the diet, I might as well really blow it!

We spent a couple of hours in the pub eating, chatting and drinking before wandering up through Covent Garden and taking lots of photographs of the beautiful Christmas displays of lights.

Covent Garden Flowers

In the main area we were lucky enough to see a gentleman singing; he had such a beautiful voice that he literally moved me to tears.

Photo Stop

I wanted to try and get pictures of all the decorations, as did everyone else. We took our turns queuing to sit with the Reindeer and it was certainly worth it.

Angela and Gordon

The Hubby and I

Huge Mistletoe

Eventually we popped onto the tube to South Kensington which was the nearest tube stop to The Royal Albert Hall. To say I was excited was an understatement. We had to wander past The Natural History Museum and its Ice Rink. It was simply beautiful and we spent a few minutes watching the skaters.

The Natural History Museum

We arrived at the Royal Albert Hall. The building was undergoing some refurbishment but was as beautiful as I imagined.

Finally here!

We headed inside with around 90 minutes to spare. Finding a bar was our priority and we eventually saw ourselves in the Stella Artois bar.

At this point there were around 9 people inside it. However it only had chairs for 8 people!

Cheers!

We ordered our drinks; a gin and tonic, a pint of Stella and two red wines. We obviously expected it to be a little more than you would normally pay. However £30 later and with nowhere to sit, we stood by a window and chatted.

Thankfully a group of 4 people who had one of the only two tables left soon and we were able to sit down for the second round.

Eventually we made our way into the auditorium. Sadly, my sister hadn’t been able to get seats near us but was in a similar location. In fact, we could see them from our seats which was a bonus.

Getting Ready

Eventually the lights went down and the performance started. And what a performance it was!

I was lucky enough to be sat next to a couple who were out of this world.

In my haste to turn my phone off, I had accidentally rebooted it and it and it started lighting up just as the orchestra came onto the stage.

The lovely guy next to me glanced across as it came back online and saw my screensaver of the wonderful Theodore and said ‘Oh my god, what an amazing dog’

Well of course, that made us fast friends.

Ready for the performance

As the music started we were whispering comments and asking what other songs we wanted to hear, what our favourites were and also what unusual tracks we wanted to hear.

Christopher Tracys Parade, Sometime in Snows In April and many more were thrown out there and to be fair Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thomson did an amazing job of collating it all.

The orchestra was amazing; the lead violinist took her turn on the microphone and got the audience really going. Added to this was rare unseen footage shown on the big screen.

Moved to tears

Literally I was in my element.

I am not going to lie; there may have been a few tears shed at a few of the songs. Seeing Prince on the big screen brought home the fact that he was no longer with us. His genius lost forever.

Whether you like him or not, there is no denying his musical prowess and productivity. A multi-instrumentalist who had literally thousands of unheard songs in his vault, it was amazing to hear some of the rarer tracks played by an orchestra. Added to that were the really popular tracks and you were on to a winner.

Full Orchestra

The performance ended around two hours later and we filed out of the Royal Albert Hall.

By now it was 2210 and the quick and easy subway to the tube closed at 2200. This meant we had a 30 minute walk to South Kensington, which wasn’t a problem however ate into the time we had to get to St Pancras.

Back at the Museum

Coupled with some issues on the tube, my anxiety ramped up as I seriously worried about getting to our train in time.

We had first class seats reserved on the 2315 train; which we watched leave the platform as we rushed along to it. Queue a minor panic attack.

As we got to the gates with the hope that it wasn’t our train that had just left, we asked the two guys if our train was here. The sadly told us it was the one that had just departed.

Seriously?!?!

The next (and last) train left at 0015. I asked how we could get tickets for that train and they were brilliant. They told us to come back at midnight and they would ask the train manager if we could get on the train.

We popped to Marks and Sparks for some snacks and wine and turned back up at the turnstiles at midnight. They had already asked the train manager if we could get on and she had agreed. We showed her the tickets and found a seat in first class.

Unfortunately as lovely as it was being allowed on the train it was the SUPER slow train home. Usually taking anywhere between 55 and 68 minutes home, this train took over 2 hours to get home, which meant it was far too late for the hubby to go to work on the Friday.

Yes. I literally was that tired

We literally set alarms to wake us up when we were close to home as both of us were absolutely shattered. However we had a super amazing day. The music was epic, as was the company.

Also I had ticked off another thing on my ‘bucket list’ which is slowly coming down.

The Royal Albert Hall was simply sublime. I would love to go back for one of the Proms performances. I might even have to add that to my list.

Have you been? What did you see?

Until next time,

SPSG xxx