However, the weekend was upon me, and after spending Friday catching up with chores and making some preparation notes, Saturday brought far more interesting times. It was my first BTCC weekend of the season, with the tournament coming to Donington Park.
It will always remain "my" track, my local, my home from home and somewhere I simply love to be.
Saturday was mainly dry and we found a good seating area on some rock formed steps down at the bottom of Craner curves. We stocked up on doughnuts and hot drinks from the obligatory vans as we watched qualifying rounds for all the formulas who would be racing the following day.
It was a bit cold and windy at times and I left swearing that on our return the following day I would layer up!
We left early in order to get back in time for my little sister V's birthday meal. The family gathered at Miller and Carter for a slap up tasty steak meal. I sadly couldn't manage a starter, main AND pudding so I opted for a rather tasty After Eight mint cocktail as my desert. DEEELISH.
On Sunday morning, we set off early for another day's racing. I went fully prepared with two vest tops, two jumpers, a fleece and my H2NO rain coat. It was a good job because the mother of all downpours occurred as soon as we got out the car. Along with another 100 racing fans we all tried to squeeze into the diner café and under the big parasols outside to stay out of the wet. Our hopes of a comfortable days racing faded as it got heavier and heavier. We wouldn't be leaving early today, and as we had tickets for the BTCC After Party! So staying dry was a priority! Fortunately we managed to stay dry during the downpour and once it trailed off, we drifted down to find a suitable perch for the days races. Showers came and went throughout the day, but this lead to some pretty interesting and action packed races! :-) We had a second downpour in the afternoon, which V and I just hunkered down on our rock step seats and covered ourselves in our brolly, managing to avoid a soaking.
My trusty waterproof held out and the best racing was at towards the end of the afternoon with some brilliant racing and manoeuvres. We moved away from our sheltered rock steps and headed to the first corner for the final race of the day, and it was well worth the wind and cold there. V took some brilliant photographs of the action.
The best of the weekend was still to come as after the racing finished we headed straight to the BTCC After Party!
After a VERY disappointing turkey and stuffing bap from one of the vintage themed food vans, we took our place near the stage, sneaking into the VIP area at the request of the first band- Ferris. They played an average set, but were pretty uninspiring. Following them was Toploader who played a fairly decent set but the sound quality was awful. There was NO vocal sound for the front of the stage, so while the rest of the music could be heard, the vocals sounded muffly like Peter Kay's DJ. The band and sound guys were informed by two slightly crazy people stood next to me (more on these later) but the sound issue remained throughout the whole set. They played the only two songs I actually knew which was Achilles Heel and Dancing In The Moonlight which is one of very few songs that actually incite physical repulsion and hatred in me. It's an AWFUL song. On every level. But I endured it... and all for the headline act... REEF.
I have loved Reef since my teens when they were big throughout the Britpop years and they TOTALLY lived up to expectation. To my (and the crazy fans next to me's) relief the sound was fixed as Reef brought with them, their own sound engineer. It turned out the crazy fans next to me were SO crazy that they knew the band. I say knew, as in they have clearly stalked them from day one and appear at all of their gigs. They'd already travelled from Southampton for this gig because it was the guitarist's last ever show.
Reef were incredible. After the previous two distinctly average bands, they completely took over the room. Gary Stringer looked EXACTLY as he did from the early reef days and sounded amazing. Being so close to the stage he smiled and crouched right in front of me for photographs; and just owned the stage like a pro. It was brilliant. I sang away to my hearts content, which Gary seemed to appreciate giving me a lovely big smile half way through Yer Old. He's still fit as. Amazing.
I know it was amazing... as I am still thinking about it days later. If that isn't a sign of a good gig I don't know what is. Speaking of gigs... I haven't blogged about my big news yet. *Mental Note to blog about that tomorrow *.
Monday was spent in the park doing some more interview prep before returning back to work on Tuesday. My interview was today, and after spending a few days feeling completely under prepared I think it went okay. It was a bit short, felt a bit rushed by the interviewers at times but I think this was because they had a lot of applicants to get through. By and large it was okay... I don't think I've ever come out of an interview thinking I said EVERYTHING I needed to, but generally I think they got the message that I had the skills for the role, and they made some comments suggesting that I would be considered for a post. Time will tell. I have another interview to prepare for next week so after a night off I'll get back on the studying. I've been back to the gym tonight for the first time in about two weeks due to me being ill and then busy and then lazy. Must get back on it!!! I'm also half way through a wedding topper commission which I need to finish in the next couple of weeks! eek... If only I had more hours in the day!
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