It's been a few months since I last posted and I've missed sharing my journey that is life and so I am looking to doing more of that! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and that 2024 is a good year for us all.

I'd like to share an amazing day I had in October last year, and to be honest, I never thought I'd of ever gone, I absolutely have my partner to thank for it! Ok let me start at the beginning...

If you remember my previous post about my partner and I in Kagga Kamma in South Africa, I mentioned somewhere about us being stuck in the chalet as the weather was brutally cold and the heavens were opening. One evening we were going through my hard drive looking for something to watch (I've a load of random movies/series on it, half of which I've never actually watched). Whilst scrolling through we came across a series called Nashville, my partner said that I'd absolutely love it, however I was unsure at first as I thought I knew what it was basically about... how wrong I was! We watched the first episode and I was hooked. I'm not sure how many episodes we watched that evening wrapped up in bed with the electric blanket on (that I quickly packed from home to take with us as I just knew we'd be needing it). It was time to put the laptop away and sleep lol.

We very quickly became Nashville junkies lol. Once we arrived back at the house after our holiday, we would sit and watch Nashville every evening after dinner until we just couldn't keep our eyes open anymore. I was due to fly back to the UK where I am from (I can only stay in South Africa for 3 months at a time on a visitors visa) and so we tried to finish the series before I had to leave, however that didn't happen and so I'd watch in the UK and my partner would watch at his place, and as always, it was a "press play on the count of three" situation lol.

I arrived back in the UK in September last year (it feels like forever since being together and it's hitting me hard truth be told) anyway... I told my cousin about the series Nashville as I thought she would also enjoy it. Turns out she loved it and also binged watched it lol. I then discovered that the cast of Nashville were coming to London for a Nashville Reunion Tour in the October! I couldn't believe it. I excitedly told my cousin about it and suggested we should have a day out in London and go to the show, of course she agreed. I ordered us both t-shirts with "Nashville" wrote on them and a cowgirl hat off that site "Temu" I'm not sure if you've heard of it or not... It's hit and miss to the point that I had to soak my hat in our pool and use clothes pegs to get its shape back! Haha!! It was seriously bent and out of shape when it arrived. I didn't have time to organise another one so it was a 'make-the-best-out-of-it' kind of situation haha!

We had the best time! My cousin is 4 years younger than me and was my first ever best friend in life (apart from my wonderful mum of course). We went through some soul destroying stuff growing up, not that we knew about each others suffering until later on life. It's lovely now, as adults, spending time together and is something that should be done more often. Ok, back to Nashville...

We took the train to London Liverpool Street and hopped on the underground (of course we got on the wrong one, only once! Though easily rectified given how quick they come) lol. We took a walk along the Embankment where various street performers usually gather, from singers, magicians, and other theatrics take place. Naturally we took lots of photos (we are as bad as each other for that, literally capturing almost every moment lol).

If you've been to London then I'm sure you know that a LOT of walking is involved. We opted to walk rather than keep using the tube, especially as everywhere we wanted to go wasn't too far a walk anyway (and it's less stress to walk than fight amongst everyone underground - my brain wasn't up for that lol). We used Google Maps on our phones to navigate the streets which was easy enough (we're not frequent visitors to London so we needed Google's help lol). We were starting to feel hungry after a lot of walking and picture taking that we decided to head to China Town. We are both Chinese food lovers so it seemed appropriate to go and have some all you can eat yummy Chinese food!

China Town is packed with lots of Chinese restaurants, mostly buffet style too, which is just good sense ;) I've been a few times and always end up at "Mr Wu", prices are very reasonable, though it can be bit cramped inside at times and so if you're looking for a nicer environment then I'd suggest going to a different restaurant lol, but the food is very nice! We didn't really have a lot of time to be that particular about our choice because we had a show to get to :) Once we were finished with our food, we took a walk through China Town to get to a tube station as we needed to get to where the theatre was. A little while after, I suddenly remembered that London has South African shops! I was eager to get myself some Droëwors, (south African dried sausage) I absolutely love it and really miss eating it when I'm back here in the UK. As luck would have it, there was a shop literally a 6 minute walk away from where we were at the time! It was just outside Charing Cross Station for those that may be interested!

I was in heaven and was super pumped to show my cousin everything. I saw that they had a cider that I really enjoy when in South Africa, "Savanna Light" and so myself and my cousin had bought one, along with some Droëwors, which I was thrilled that my cousin enjoyed!

I was hoping to get some Simba Mrs Balls Chutney crisps, however they were waiting on a delivery for those, oh well. We headed back out and decided to take a look around a place called Covent Garden which wasn't too far a walk from where we were. Cider in one hand and phones in the other...

We arrived at Covent Garden, there's usually performers here as well, which there was. A massive crowd was watching a man doing all kinds of acrobatic moves and bending his body in ways that make me wince lol. We took some more photos and watched a while before wondering through the Apple Market looking at lots of antiques, gift stalls, food stalls etc and just enjoying the atmosphere before finally heading to the theatre.

We arrived at the theatre with about an hour to spare until the queueing began. I think we were the first ones there, suprise suprise lol. We were so excited and just glad our phones held our battery level so well! Luckily my cousin remembered her power bank (I forgot mine!) So we each bumped up our phones a bit more in time for the show as we absolutely had to take more photos inside and videos of course! Wow, what a performance it was.

This is the wonderful Jonathan Jackson who played Avery in the "Nashville" series performing one of Elvis Presley's hits "Unchained Melody". It bought me to tears, being an Elvis fan, I absolutely love this song and Jonathan just performed it beautifully, I was not expecting that at all, just WOW!

Next up is the exceptionally beautiful Clare Bowen who played Scarlett in the "Nashville" series performing "Black Roses" from the series. Her voice is so angelic and pure, I just love her. I love them all really lol, and the music that show gave us is amazing! Not to mention their own music outside of the show too, do go check them out if you haven't already and of course, I highly recommend the series too!

The end of the evening was just the icing on the cake for me. My cousin and I had decided we would wait around just a little while after the show had ended by the stage door to see if any of the cast would appear. This happens quite often with shows in London (and other places too I'm sure). The security people couldn't tell us for certain if they would appear or not so it was a choice we had to make ourselves (usually we're not good at that, but we were that night and boy am I glad we decided to wait). I think we waited just shy of two hours and then Charles Esten and Sam Pallidio came walking out! Oooooooh my goodness, we were thrilled. There was about 20 of us that waited after the show so it wasn't really that crowded which was nice, and we both managed to get photos with each of them which was amazing, I have this posts main photo in a frame (of course I do haha!).

The BEST part of the whole entire day for me though, was that I was able to phone my partner on a video call and Sam and Charles each spoke to him on the phone! I wanted my partner to be able to be a part of that day as much as I could, and so I was just so happy that this happened. I did take a screen recording of it all too but sadly it cut out of the sound. Anyway, I am so thankful to my partner for suggesting that we watch Nashville whilst we were away and convincing me that I'd enjoy it, because wow, how amazing is it that I only just watched the series and then a few weeks afterwards, they announced the reunion tour that I was able to go to AND meet two of the stars! That was definitely a highlight of 2023 for me, and they also announced that they'll be back in London in the Spring 2024 so I'm keeping my eyes peeled for dates! Also, did I mention how happy I am to have these photos... ;)