George Benson in concert

Going in I still thought the gods would conspire to stop us from going in. The tickets were ok after being scanned by a steward, and we made our way to our seats. Unfortunately there was
no support act and Gerge was obviously thinking of a cup of cocoa and an early night as he was going to play from 7:50 and finish at 9:30. So an hour and a half of concert time. A bit disappointing considering the day we had. Still, we weredetermined to enjoy it. It turned out that he would not start till 8, in fact he came on at 8:15. And almost from the start people got on their feet to clap and dnce. Tracy was no exception, and it was great to see her enjoying herself. Even Simon got on hs feet, and Ben was swinging clearly having got over his malady of the previous days. What was so remarkable was the absolute freedom to take photos and videos. I thought that this was a no-no and was only expecting to take photos of the family before and after the concert. In fact I could have videoed away for the whole show, but guilt kept telling me to stop now and then. The evening went so quick and the backing band were so good. Lots of class in the line up, having been involved with the likes of Barbara Streisand, Earl Klugh, Chaka Khan and Stevie Wonder amongst others. There was a wonderful encore with George playing On Broadway, one of my favourites. I had hoped that he would play 'Breezin'' and Tracy her favourite song song 'This Masquerade'. Otherwise it was a great experience and even more so after the day of drama we had endured. To top the concert experience off George Benson came over to our side of the stage and people rushed forward to shake his hands. To her credit and realising that it was a chance of a lifetime, Tracy surged forward to join them and actually managed to shake his hand and congratulate him.
When we got back, Tracy and I managed to get out for half an hour for a drink at the Old Orleans, next door to the hotel. This would be the place where we would be having breakfast the following morning. This is a tale of perserverence, and the way we as a family adapting to a situation we had not experienced before. Breaking down on the road has NEVER happened to us and in fact we never even thought it would happen to us, so reliable was our car. Thank God we were covered by the RAC, and had a brilliant mechanic, without whom we would have missed that concert and would now be miserably sitting here full of regrets and cursing our luck. Thank God also that we had sufficient cover for our car to be towed back to our house, and Paul the RAC man even phoned me to say that he had done that, easing our minds about our Clio. Reaching that concert not only gave us a wonderful experience of seeing a true giant in the world of popular music, but also gave this family that we can overcome anything that life hurls at us. It would have been too easy to just give up on that road at 1 pm on that Saturday afternoon. But we didn't, and we have learned that there is always a way to overcome misfortune.