T is for ten out of ten for Tom!

Wow! I'm still on a high from the Tom Odell concert last night in Tivoli. It was amazing! I really love his music anyway, but his show was really incredible and definitely exceeded my expectations and then some. It had all the criteria for a brilliant concert:

excellent sound quality; decent length performance (he played for about 1 hour 45 mins in total!); interaction with the audience - lots of chat and really informal so not rehearsed or at least it didn't feel like that; open and honest - at one point he was supposed to play a song but he said he had played it five nights in a row before last night, so he played a new song which wasn't completely finished and apologised in advance for any fuck ups; going off stage and into the audience - he went down into the mosh pit... well, with his audience it was not really a mosh pit crowd - when I saw Kasabian there, the crowd were rowdy and throwing beer and really quite pushy, but this crowd were more polite and the only risk he ran was of being stroked by adoring female fans!; moving around the stage, he was dancing on his piano and using all of the stage; a really great band including a stunning and very talented backing singer; a proper encore... when they came back they played at least four songs and invited the support band on stage to perform one of them; last but definitely not least, good friends to accompany me... Di and Esther, and thanks to Di for organising a reserved seat for me in the special section, with a great view!

All in all, a fantastic experience, even though I got emotional when he sang 'Grow old with me'.... a recipe for disaster.. I mean I often cry at songs (and films and adverts and those meaningful video clips that are always on Facebook!) so I am a bit of wuss, but in the current situation, this one struck a particular chord ( that wasn't a deliberate musical pun by the way, but I think Greg James from Radio 1 would be proud!). The ever perceptive Esther put her arms around me at that point even though she was standing slightly behind me and couldn't see the tears and that was really lovely - even though that made me cry even more! When people are nice to me that also starts me off... you see, it's not easy to turn the waterworks on with me!

Yesterday was a good day in general, I had a couple of mails from friends with potential new work, one private lesson and one proof-reading job, both of which are very likely to develop into something concrete, so that is very positive. I was up and about quite a lot, went out for a walk, got my pre-chemo shopping done: bland foods that I think I might be able to stomach when I am feeling nauseous next in the coming days/week. This morning I'm going to give the kitchen a thorough clean and make sure the fridge is odour free and empty the bin etc. Learnt my lesson from last time. Ed is under instructions to make sure any washing up is done and not left on the side and he might have to forego his special (Belgian) beers for the next few days because beer-breath smell in bed isn't a pleasant one!

So chemo is at 14.00, until around 16.30 and then I am free to come home - hurray! Before that I have my appointment with the physio to discuss the fitness programme that I want to take part in. I've been doing my exercises religiously every day so far and I do feel better so want to keep up with that, even if I'm not feeling great after chemo.

Leaving this post on a positive note and hope that the positivity and a bit of luck keep me sailing through the next week or so.

4 sleeps until Caela comes!