Friday night is music night ...

A little shared memory of my Mum in the title. Friday night on Radio 2 has been, for all my living memory anyway, 'music night', with a programme of oh, I don't know, old stuff that your mum listened to. Mum always listened and I always groaned, 'What are you listening to this rubbish for?'

Anyway, Friday night is quite often music night for me because I seem to have gone to quite a few concerts over the past few years, and last night was no exception. Well, it was a concert/ 40th birthday party combined. James was 40 and invited friends and fans to his birthday bash in Woking, with Sailor as the live entertainment - a kind of birthday present to all the guests.

'James? James?' I hear you muttering. 'She's never mentioned a James before.'

James is Sailor's and Georg Kajanus' official biographer, a Sailor fan, and a thoroughly nice chap, and before you switch off, this is not a review of the concert because that belongs on a site for Sailor fans who will appreciate it (not like you philistines!)

I had the day off work (the first of many in the run up to Christmas, as I have several days' leave to take plus overtime hours to use up: I've only got 4 working days before Wednesday 20th, when it's our Christmas lunch and my last day!) and went and got a hair-cut. No-one sniggered in the salon when Lynne asked me, 'What are we going for then?' and I replied, 'Well, you know Lulu?' I must say, it looked fantastic when Lynne had finished with me, although whether or not I can keep the style, I don't know! Lots of straightening and flicking involved and I'm not exactly skilled or patient ... We'll see!

After that I dropped into the beauty salon where my good friend Swims With Crocodiles had topped up my account as a birthday present. A new beauty therapist came out from the back and she was someone I used to work with many, many moons ago. 'My God!' she exclaimed, 'you haven't changed at all!' That was an ego-boost, because it was 15 years and 5 stone ago! So I had a treatment with her and caught up on a lot of news about former colleagues, and booked up another treatment for the day before my last day (I love saying my last day!) then did a bit of shopping and came home to get ready for the concert.

Anyone ever been to Woking? Anyone ever been to Woking on a multi-map internet route-plan? Don't. Seriously, I ended up in a church hall asking directions to this place everyone told me I couldn't miss. Half an hour later I seriously contemplated going back to the church hall and spending the evening there! Eventually I made it and had a several nice surprises - one was Susanne, a German friend who had come over and I hadn't got her e-mail to say she was coming. It was lovely to see her, especially when she said I looked fantastic and so much better than in the summer and had I lost weight? (Music to my ears, even though I hadn't!)

I also spoke briefly to a girl I'd met a couple of times back in the 70s at Sailor concerts. I didn't like her much then and, I discovered, I didn't like her any more when I met her again! She always seemed very hard and the years haven't softened her any. (I know, it's bitchy of me, but this is my blog!) She made some very stupid comments about the band, and that didn't endear her to me either!

I said earlier that I wouldn't go on about the band, so I won't, suffice it to say that they were brilliant - and I didn't know that I would be able to say that honestly again now that Pete has left and Ollie has taken his place as lead singer.

It was wonderful to see the original lead singer Georg, and his partner Barbie, who had come to celebrate James' birthday, and see the band perform for the first time since Georg left about 12 years ago. I'd met them in the summer and it was lovely that they remembered me.

The journey home was as bad as the journey there. I got very clear directions back to the car-park but of course what the person forgot was that the doors through the shopping mall to the carpark were locked by this time. It took me 35 minutes to get to the car because I had to go the long way round. If the mall had been open it would have taken me 10. I then got into the wrong lane and ended up doing another tour of Woking before getting onto the right road for the M3 and then it was plain sailing until a mile from home, when a police van pulled in behind me. I switched the radio off and checked my speed - no, I wasn't speeding. I turned off the main road onto the road that leads to my estate. Police followed at a not-very-discreet distance. They followed me as I turned into 4 different roads and into my own, which is a cul-de-sac. I turned into my drive. They stopped across the road and a young (rather good-looking!) officer got out. I asked if anything was the matter and he apologised if they'd frightened me by following me all that time, but they were on a call to 'an incident' in my road and couldn't help noticing my brake light was out and thought they'd better point it out to me because (wink from officer) the police could stop me for that and I could be fined £30. What a very very nice policeman!

So ... a long-winded story of my Friday night/early Saturday morning. I got in at 2am, too alert and too hungry to sleep, so I had some toast, checked emails etc until 3.30 and then went to bed, 'tired but happy' as all good school essays say.

I decided some time ago that I really couldn't afford to go and see Sailor in Munich in February but ... after seeing them last night ... Where did I put that lottery ticket?