I wrote a post about a trip to Bradford a few months back, we went up to Yorkshire for the regional National Concert Band Festival. At this festival we were awarded a Gold award and invited to the National festival in Cardiff. So this Saturday saw us all travel down to Cardiff for the festival. We had a rehearsal before our 20 minute performance, so basically my Saturday was 3 hour drive, 2 hour rehearsal, 20 minute performance, 3 hour drive. A pretty tiring day all in all.
I drove down the M50 which is a great drive, beautiful scenery. I had my camera with me but unfortunately I can’t take photos and drive so I have no pictures of my trip which was a bit of a shame. I was hoping to get to see the Cardiff bay, the main city centre and take a few shots but there just wasn’t time. Anyway, the drive wasn’t too bad and there weren’t too many idiots on the road, it was a 310 mile journey (155 miles each way) which is a fair way when I don’t do much long distance driving.
To try and help me concentrate what I tried was to not touch my brake on the motorway, except obviously coming up to junctions. I managed it both ways. You may think this sounds a strange thing to do but there is a good reason to do it. The only way it’s possible to do is if you always know what’s going on behind and in front of you at all times and allowing sensible amounts of space between you and other cars, I can’t stand people who are on and off the the brake and travel too close to other people, it’s why we get traffic bunching up on motorways.
Enough about the journey, was my trip worth it? most definitely. Our performance was pretty good, the odd slip here and there but overall it sounded good to me, I even got the old hairs on the back of the neck standing up at one point (which means it must have sounded good!). Well the adjudicators were suitably impressed and awarded us Gold which is the highest honour. A great achievement and we were very pleased with ourselves. A busy but rewarding Saturday
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