Before I start this summary of events, please bear in mind that the first half of this account was written at one am after the dinner. The second half was written the next morning when I was feeling more awake, but my memory had faded slightly. I apologize for any gaps in the narrative, my memory is notoriously bad. I'm sure the others will be able to give more complete accounts.
Funniest bit of the evening - My friend Rachel scolding Tony for not letting her pull out of a notorious junction in Paulton a few months ago.
Most embarrassing moment - My unintentional pun when telling Tony about a charity I'm involved with - The National Childbirth Trust. I was explaining we where going to start a big push for membership in the local area. I didn't realize what I'd said until he and Rachel started falling about the car park laughing! Ooops!
Driving up the very long, imposing driveway for the Hotel with my friend Rachel, we found our nervousness increasing by a factor of a thousand. Not only were we spending an evening in Tony's company, but we were spending it at the Bath Spa Hotel. (Being locals, we were vividly aware of its very posh reputation. We have friends who have worked there, not stayed there!) We met up with the other Tweedies and got escorted (!) up to the Dinning Room.
Stephanie Cole met in the Dinning Room, and was incredibly welcoming and lovely. After a while chatting and mingling, Tony came over to our table, and I can only say, Wow! You guys all know from 'The Prom' how delectable he looks in a tux, but when he's in the same room as you, in fact a few feet away - well again I can only say, Wow! We were all amazingly lucky as our table was at the front only a few feet away from where he was going to be singing.
After a bit of chatting we all had our photo taken - Antonia (Headrush) and I at the front of the table, Tony and the rest of the Tweedies at the back. I was feeling slightly saddened by this arrangement when it was decided we looked too separate from the group and we were told to stand behind the others, and so I ended up next to Tony with his arm around me. :-) I didn't feel sad any more!
After the meal, which was as delicious as a meal from a five star hotel should be, Stephanie Cole stood up, and gave a short speech and then introduced Tony. This was the part of the evening where we thought we'd died and gone to heaven! I can't describe adequately just how amazing it was hearing him sing live. At the beginning, he apologized as he and his pianist hadn't had enough time for many rehearsals, and warned that he might forget some of the words.
He sang some songs from his album as well as some others. The songs from his album were Babies, We Can Work It Out, This Town in the Rain & __. His daughter deuted with him on WCWIO, but wished to make it clear it wasn't her singing on the album as she didn't approve of what Holly had done with the song. Amongst the other songs he sang were, I Can't Stand the Rain, Have Faith in Me, and a song from Chess, (I'm afraid I'm not familar with the show, so couldn't remember the title of the song.) and others I can't remember the names of. He was amazing. (And only a few feet from me! Sorry. ;-) )
When then had the raffle when Anya's tickets kept on being drawn, but being the lovely lady that she is, she asked for it to be redrawn after she won the first prize. Our table did pretty well, getting 3 out of the seven prizes!
As the evening drew on, more and more people left, until it was just us Tweedies and Tony stood at the back of the hall chatting.
He was telling us about filming for the second series of Manchild, and spending two days wearing nothing but an apron. Whilst we all pondered upon that image, he asked us whether we would be able to campaign the BBC to get them to rerun the first series of Manchild, before they show the second. This is because a lot of people missed part or all of the first series and the second assumes series you know what happened in the first. So girls, get those emails flying!
It was at this point Rachel admitted to Tony, about very nearly giving him the finger and swearing at him when she was in her car when he wouldn't let her out of a narrow junction in Paulton. Fortunately she recognized him before she did, and he was very apologetic! She then started scolding him, as most people give way to cars coming out of this junction as it's rather a nasty one. He promised he would in the future. He also told her she could say hello when she sees him in Tesco's!
By this point the Hotel staff had cleared the tables and turned the lights up, so we got the idea they might want us to go. So we went. The other Tweedies were going to the bar, but as me and Rachel have toddlers who wake up early, (mine's teething and has been waking up at five every morning) we had to go and walked out to the car park with Tony. It was at this point I unintentionally punned, which was a shame as up until the point I'd sounded fairly intelligent whilst telling him about the campaigning the NCT does.
As he was in a different car park to us, we left him after thanking him again and walked out back to our car. It was whilst driving out of the car park, trying to see out of the misted up windows, that I said to Rachel - "This is of course where we crash into him!" And low and behold, there he was! He let us out, and we were joking how we were glad he was behind us so he wouldn't think we were stalking him as we had to drive home the same way as him. When he then turned off from the main road, we assumed he was taking a shortcut we didn't know about. You can imagine our surprise when half way up the Wells Road, (the main route out of Bath towards Timsbury), there he was again, at a junction waiting to turn onto the Wells Road. Rachel's annoyed she didn't see him sooner, as she would have let him out just to make a point! *wink*
It was an amazing evening, and not only because of Tony, it was lovely to finally meet in flesh some fellow fans, all of whom where lovely people and I can only hope they enjoyed the event as much as I did.
You can see my photo's of the evening here -
http://www.amaltheia.net (under Rethink in the menu)
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