Normal but not normal

I am feeling very low today, illness is a hard thing to live with on a daily basis but hidden illness can be such a curse.  To the world you look totally normal but on the inside it is completely the opposite.  This is where the problems occur!

When someone sees a stick, chair etc then they make exceptions but when you can't see the illness people even well meaning make jugements!  

To the world I look fine and while I spend my life trying to not let my illnesses define me in the image I project to the world the opposite is the case! 

You see my illnesses do define me, they make mornings impossible for me because the sedutives make me groggy and dizzy.  

My day is dictated by rounds of medication that I need a maths degree just to get the timings right! Not joking here have some that have to be take 30 minutes before food, no others can be taken 2 hours after them, another has to be within an hour of food but nothing else within an hour of that!  The list goes on! 

My GERD and IBS dictate what I can eat without being ill, I can't sit down to a meal like the rest of you without being that one who can't eat half the menu and has to be difficult.  I don't want to be but the consequences are ... well google them! Won't be discussing that but not good. 

My cyst causes nerve pain, my damaged discs also so limit my movements. 

My knees hurt so much I walk slow or not at all, I do my best to avoid even limited steps because each one hurts.  

My meds make me constantly thirsty, its a nightmare but then the water retention tablets mean I am always needing the toilet.  I drive people mad needing the toilet. 

My Fibro hurts so bad I limit hugs and ask close friends and family to limit the strength in touching me, most think I am being over the top but honesty each touch even a well meaning hug hurts ne! Even my own clothes on my skin does and there is nothing I can do about it.  

My CFS/ME really limits my day, if I manage to wake without brain fog its a miracle! I never thought that tiredness could be so intense! I used to wake up after a long nights sleep refreshed now i wake up sore and as tired as I was before i went to sleep. 

I spend the day fighting my eyes, its like life long jetlag! Yet not! You see my bodies tired too, it hurts like I have done too much when I have not.  It has me limiting my days and judging what I deem as important that day! If i don't listen to it the petulant baby it is throws a tantrum and makes me so poorly I have to stay in bed! This makes me so paranoid! Always scared to step out of line! 

I try to smile, so hard I try! Often i manage until I close a door then the tears come but even that causes judgements because you see the smile but not the gritted teeth.  You don't see the inner strength being used to project that outter projection of a normal me when the insides in pieces and to be honest I usually want to sit on the floor 

and cry. 

You judge me because one minute I manage something but not the next.you think I am being difficult when I am just trying to cope! You tut, moan and refuse to change but worst of all you withdraw and it all hurts much more than my illnesses hurt me!

You see i want to be normal I like to make the image of me as normal as possible.  I dnt want to spend my life explaining how my illnesses are causing my actions.  It's not excuses! Trust me! 

Please remember I am trying so hard even if it does not appear it and try not to judge because it hurts so much! 

Please try and not huff at me, tut, moan, shake your head or worse discuss how I am affecting you because I am not doing any of it on purpose and your thinking badly of me for things I can't control hurts so much! 

Knitting some warmers for fancy dress

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I knitted when I was a child then stopped for many years, it was not until I got ill that I got back into knitting.

I am currently making some new leg and arm warmers for a fancy dress night out at Cats the musical.  The characters wear leg and some arm warmers, I am going out in fancy dress with a friend for one of the shows so knitting some with the same patterns to match.

CUTE - Beauty Shopping App

A few weeks back I was reading a beauty blog when I saw a really interesting review of an app called Cute!  Now I don't know about the rest of you but I have a huge soft spot for my beauty and cosmetics products.  I can never have too many eye shadows, always on the search for the perfect mascara and simply must try out all the new gadgets to see if they live up to their claims!

The downside to this addiction for me has always been the cost, cosmetics are in general very expensive!  You can imagine my excitement when I saw the products on the app were really reasonable, in fact if I am honest they were so cheap it had me a little concerned about the quality or them even arriving.

THE APP

When you open the app you are met with a page of items, starting with the hourly deals.  The links at the top of the page allow you to press down on them and then drag left or right to change the category  of products that you are viewing.  

The products have a nice clear photo image of them, the option to save them and the option to add to your cart.  

If you see something you are interested in and want to find out more information than is available on the home page, you simply click on the image of the product and it opens the product information for you.

I chose this really cute eyeshadow palette to have a closer look at, the product is on sale for $5 rather than $9 at the moment so even better value.  You can see that on the photo it shows us there there is a link telling us there are more photos of the product.  These are actually a mixture of photos by the seller and customers.  I really like this because you can see the products that others have received not just some staged photos from the seller.  

To access these simply click on the link, this will open the  images into the middle of the page then swipe left to scroll through them.     

        

You can see the reviews for the product under the details about the the item.  To see them all you can simply click on the number of reviews in the red print brackets or click on the red link saying review all.  This will show you what everyone is saying about the item.  

If you are just window shopping there is a handy favourites list, you can access this by clicking the heart on the bottom of the item view that is next to the share button. 

The items that you save move into folders on your account and can easily be accessed by going into your personal account.  To do this you need to navigate to the menu on the top left corner of the screen.  This is located under the three white lines.  When you click on it the below menu will open. 

As you can see the account is logged in as me, if I wanted to view my saved items I would click on my name and it shows me the items I have bought and saved.  

From here you can access your shopping cart, notifications of where the items you bought are, previous order history etc.  All are very easy to navigate.  When you have a notification a small number appears on the notifications button.  

An interesting feature of the app that I like is that when you have saved items in your folders and they go on sale for less they send you a notification to let you know.  I really like this feature as you can save things you fancy for gifts and leave them there to see if they go on sale.  

All items have different shipping times and some are fairly long, I think this one of the downsides to the app, however the shopping is very reasonable for all items, which I think is a fair trade off for the slow delivery. 

I have had several orders so far and not been disappointed at all, everything has arrived within the timescales. The items have been stunning with the exception of one item that said 1 pack of nose strips so I expected a packet of several but it was a single nose strip.  However it was only $1 so I let it slide and guess it did say 1 pack lol.  

I have bought a wide variety of items, some make up brushes, a makeup brush cleaner, a stunning silver ring, scarfs, face wash, nose pore strips and more.  I would rate every item as a 5* in quality!  I am beyond in love with the ring I bought and a watch as a gift for a friend.  

I give the app a 10 out of 10!  I have no complaints at all, in fact I have done half my Christmas shopping on it <3  

I am yet to need to put in a complaint for a refund on anything so I am not sure what their refund service is like.  

Emotional yoyo!

Living with illness that fluctuates on a daily basis can be tough, I can't plan anything because I never know how I am going to wake up.  

I am on one hand extremely grateful that there are days that I can feel slightly more like my former self before I got ill, days where I can manage to do a few things.  

When these days come I am elated, I seem to forget I am ill and push myself to my limits.  I start thinking maybe I am going to be well again longer term and start mentally planning and hoping.  Theoptimist  in me is forever hopeful that I can improve enough to at least get part time work!

Then bam comes the payment for the good day! The pain, the foggy head, the headaches, the lack of energy and the tears! Because I have been reminded that I am ill, that for every good day I have I have to pay if I do too much! 

Why do I do it is the question I ask myself! It's like the euphoria at feeling well enough to achieve things drives me on forgetting the payment.  

Then I ask myself will I do it again? Or will I ever learn? 

I think I will always do the same because I don't think the optimist in me will ever stop hoping and pushing! 

You see even as I lie here with the tears on my cheeks from the pain, hating myself for doing too much for getting to here, I am also planning all the things I need and want to do tomorrow! And I know if my body will let me I will do them no matter that I know what the payment will be because!  if I don't I would not enjoy the good days as much and frankly if I have to pay I might as well pay for a good reason! 

Makeup Brush Cleaner - Brush Egg!

Just recently I came upon an app for my Iphone called Cute, it sells lots of really different products that I have not seen available here in the UK stores.

Recently I have been doing a lot of face painting with greasepaints, they work really well for painting and last really well on the skin, however when it comes to cleaning them off my brushes I have been having a complete nightmare!

The greasepaint's are not water based so do not just rinse off, you need to use a soap based product and really scrub the bristles to remove the paint.

When flicking through Cute the other day I was drawn to a cute device called a Brush Egg, it looked a little basic however had some really good reviews and was only a $1 so I thought why not try it out. 

The device has arrived today so excited I thought I would have a quick go and see if it really works!  

As you can see from the image above my brush was pretty dirty, the greasepaint was fairly thickly on the bristles and in desperate need of a clean.  

The product actually is around the size of a medium hens egg and looks like one that has been cut down the middle, it's made of thick rubber and came packaged in a small clear bag.  

On the flat side of the egg there are two different selections of bristles, one looks a little like a draining board and the other a brush bristle.  

The back of the egg once opened has the name embossed in a pretty font across the bottom of the egg.

On the very bottom there is a hollow area, I assume this is a finger hole, the product actually comes with no instructions so it is all down to guess work!  

The bristle area of the egg is fairly soft to the touch and gave way when I pressed on it but gave enough resistance that it would allow some resistance on the makeup brush bristles.  

To use I took my brush egg and squirted some face wash onto the bristles, I have found my face washes are the best products to remove the facepaints because they are already designed to help remove stubborn waterproof makeup.   

Next I ran the Brush Egg under the water to get some lather and proceeded to simply run my brush back and forward over the bristles.  

Immediately the facewash got to work and started breaking up the greasepaint, the movement of rubbing the brush over the ridges helped spread the face wash onto all the bristles and within seconds my brush was looking spotless. I added a small amount of wash to the small bristle section of the Brush Egg to make sure I had got everything removed from the brush then simply ran both under the tap.

The egg came clean with just a small amount of water and the brush was spotless!  

I have to say I am extremely impressed, normally these brushes take me a few minutes each to clean and I usually end up with face paint spattered all over the sink and all over my hands.  

Non of this happened, the paint dripped evenly down the ridges and into the stream of water, there was no spatter and my hands were completely clean and it took around 40 seconds to fully clean from start to finish! 

I can not believe something so simple worked so well!  

For me this is a 10 out of 10! I can not believe I have managed this long without one in my beauty bag!  

Now where are the rest of my brushes :-) 

Feeling Discriminated against?

I rarely manage to eat out, my stomach is rarely hungry and when it is I tend to just want something light so when a few nights ago my tummy was actually rumbling I decided to treat myself to some good old Fish and Chips at a Harry Ramsdens.

It was fairly busy when I got there however there was a full section they had closed off, 3 large tables for 6 people 2 booths for 4 people, 1 table for 3 and several tables for 2 that I could see (there was a section I could not see from where I stood).

The waitress took me to the middle of the room and pointed at a table that had people passing on both sides,  now to the average person this may sound insane but to me the tables were not suitable at all!

Let me explain, you see I struggle with people passing too close to me because of my claustrophobia, when they do get too close I end up pulling away and god help me if people pass on both sides.  It's not a nice experience for me  and removes the enjoyment of the meal when I am so focused on the people passing.

Then there is my dizziness that can also strike worse when there is too much movement on both sides or the fear that someone might catch me as they pass.  My Fibro in my arms and legs is so bad it hurts a lot and people banging into me really does hurt.

As a result I like to sit at a table that is open enough that I don't need to worry about my claustrophobia but something like a booth, where I can scoot in a little and bingo no worry about people passing and hitting me or getting to close, even when they pass they are at a sensible distance.  No anxiety!  I can eat!

I stood in the middle of the restaurant and politely asked if there was a different table, perhaps I could have a booth?  Or one of the doubles against the wall.  She told me no I had to take that table of the one behind it.

I was feeling a little uncomfortable at that point, I don't like to point out my illnesses, it's not a card I want to hold up and say hey treat me differently but when I have to I do end up explaining politely why I am asking but I find it very embarrassing.

The girl stood there still and said you can't take any of those tables because someone might come in that needs them.  At this point I started to feel discriminated against for two reasons!  1 because I was a solo diner and 2 because she was not helping accommodate my illnesses.

Now I can understand them needing booths during peak times, however there was 3 tables of 6 that they could bump a family of 4 onto, a section they had closed they could spill into if a coach party suddenly materialised.  Surely a customer solo or a family should be entitled to sit somewhere that they are comfortable with?  Anyone's money is as good as someone else's at the end of the day!

A lot of people were now staring at me at this point, I said to the lady I am sorry but neither of these are suitable, can I not take that double over there?  This was my biggest issue here, there was a double further back that was on the side and against the wall, I would have been alright there.  She told me no it was either of those or non at all.

Standing there feeling mortified, people staring and having opened up about my illnesses and odd requirements that I feel so ashamed of I simply shook my head and said then I will have to go and eat elsewhere, you are being so unreasonable, I do not see why I can not take one of the doubles down there!

This is where the corker came, she informed me they had a take away next door!  I could eat and walk!  Gee thanks, I just told you I need to sit, yes that's a suitable option my brain yelled! In reality I  politely informed her that was not a suitable option for me!

Suddenly she relented and offered me a triple table behind a barrier that was next to the kitchens - yes instead of a lovely view of the sea front I got to look at the kitchens, however I took the table because I could at least eat.

I sat down and felt thoroughly discriminated against, why am I not a valuable customer?  Why should I have to degrade myself begging and explaining everything just to get a suitable table?

Should it be legal to enforce single people into the least desirable tables purely because they are spending a single bill?  I mean at the end of the day, I ate a main meal, 2 drinks and a desert.  This came to the same price almost as if 2 customers and a child had a main course.  So the idea that it's monetary does not always add up!

I actually got a really sweet waitress who came over and had a quiet word with me about what was wrong with my seating, she had seen how long I was stood with the girl placing me.  I told her what had happened and she sent the manager over.  While he stood and said sorry I did not feel anything was addressed.

Have you ever felt discriminated against anywhere because of something?  How do you address it?  How does it make you feel?

I was so embarrassed, I felt like I had to lay myself bare to just be allowed to sit down.  Safe to say I will never be eating in there again no matter how nice the food was!

Covet Me - Were we all scammed?

So what is happening with Covet.me?  It's a question so many of us are asking and sadly there does not appear to be any good answers to our questions.  

If you were lucky enough to have not been caught out by the company you many not know what I am talking about, a few months ago a new site called Covet.Me came bounding through the blogging world promising gift vouchers for our favourite brands in return for sharing our favourite fashion items through their site on various social media sites.  

Many of us spent hour upon hour carefully choosing items to share with our followers on both our blogs and social media, we then chose tags that we knew would get the items shared and proceeded to add them to the various social media sites.  

It was very exciting, while the work took time it was enjoyable and I did see a lot of nice items that I could buy for gifts, but the most exciting was the prospect of the vouchers in return for our efforts.  It took me a while to get to cash out but I was so excited when I did.  I chose the one I wanted and I have to admit I even chose what I was wanting to spend it on.

The site promised they would only be a few weeks although there was a delay.  I waited and waited, weeks past and nothing!

I politely emailed, left messages on Facebook and tweeted their help pages, to start with I was told there were delays but I would get my voucher, they promised so I continued.  

A few ore weeks and I was told they had introduced security checks, this was causing more delays but I could understand that some people had been abusing the systems so I sat back and waited, again they promised on their messages that I would get my voucher. 

Two months past and nothing, I was then told that I had passed security and that I would be in the next batch, I was so excited and started telling people to have faith that things were moving forward.  

I feel like such an idiot now, its now been 4 months and no sign of my voucher, I have pretty much given in messaging them, I have no more faith in what they are telling me.  I feel extremely let down, taken advantage of and beyond guilty for sharing all this with my followers and wasting their time.  

I just wanted to take time out to say how sorry I am to anyone who followed me to use this site, I 100% believed in them. 

So what is happening now?  I know some people have reported the company to various places the ASA among others, I have seen posts from other bloggers whom like myself have pretty much given in.  They have vanished from social media, I have seen no replies nor anyone get a voucher in weeks. I think they have gone under if I am completely honest.  

Was it a scam?  I don't think it was, I think it was a site that got more popular than they expected but I do feel that it was badly managed when it did get too popular.  They could have made the vouchers worth a lot more or something to slow down payouts but I have no idea what they were really doing.  Was there even any security checks?  I don't think we will ever know.

I was going to report them to the ASA myself but upon seeing others had done so decided that there was no sense in doing so.

If I see anything further on social media I will update but I think the answer is that Covet is pretty much defunct and non of us will be seeing our vouchers :-(  Buy buy to my hair care products!  

Redbush Tea Competition Win

Redbush Tea Competition Win!

I do not win many competitions but when I do I am over the moon!  A few days ago I won on twitter with @RedbushTeaCo

I won a lovely selection of caffeine free Redbush Tea, which I can not wait to try.  I do not drink as much tea as I used to due to the caffeine content and have not actually realised Redbush was caffeine free so am quite excited to try it out but also excited with the concept of a cuppa I can have without it upsetting my tummy!

There was also a wonderful selection of books, I have to admit I have not heard of them before but appears to be a detective series, I am a keen reader so these will be read sharpish.  Actually can not wait to get stuck into them, but going to wait until my up and coming trip so I have something for the travel.  

Next is an absolutely lovely recycled note pad, its beautiful, there is a feather on the front, not sure what bird but the note pad looks so different, I love it! 

The top item is a small Redbush magnet, that's found a home on my photograph board, I can never have too many magnets!

Lastly my favourite item was the handmade Redbush exfoliating soap, I have to admit I had no idea they had other products, but as I was jumping in the shower this morning I gave this an outing immediately.  I have to say the colours were a bit boring, it looks like a block of frozen tea lol.

Not much to the scent however it had a lovely lather and the best thing was the soap really did provide an amazing exfoliation on my skin.  The scrub was hard but not too hard and plenty of it throughout the soap.  My skin was left feeling nice and clean but not dried out.  I can see this being added to my shopping list in future.  

I also need to check out what other products they have, I was very impressed with the soap and notepad so I need to do some investigating.  This is one of the reasons I adore entering competitions I find so many products that many times I would never have tried but that become part of my everyday life.  It's very exciting from the winning announcement through to getting to try out the products.  

Thank you so much Redbush Tea!  I will try and remember to update the blog once I get through the teas, I need some Soya milk first, I only have Rice milk in at the moment and its too thin for tea.  

Kineso Tape - No more Granny tights - funky pink feet instead!

I hurt my foot a few years ago, it was just a small hairline fracture but since then it has not stopped swelling up.  A lot appears to be due to my reduced mobility issues causing lack of good circulation, however every now and again it just swells right up.

I have been wearing ugly compression socks for 3 years, they are tight, fall down and are very expensive to buy.  I then moved onto a small compression bandage, I liked that as it was comfortable but it was pushing the fluid into my toes!  

A few weeks ago I had another flare and look what happened to my poor foot!  

It was so swollen I could not fit my shoes on at all and when I pressed the top it indented as above for ages afterwards.  

I was googling ways to help reduce the swelling when I spotted a link to Kineso taping, I have seen it previously but I have to be honest that I was very skeptical about how some tape would reduce the swelling, I was however at the end of my tether so decided to buy some and give it a go.  

The tape comes in many different sizes and colours but I opted to buy some bright pink as it is my favourite colour.  

The tape is really easy to use, simply measure how much you need of the roll by measuring it against the area you are taping then cut two identical strips of it.  

Next with the scissors you need to cut three cuts almost to the top of the strip so that it divides the lower section into four smaller strips that looks like this. 

Next you remove the sticky backing and tape the full section around the area of the ankle you are taping.  Then pulling gently to stretch the tape a little draw it out and stick it onto your foot.  Repeat with both pieces of tape so they cover a side each. 

The tape does keep coming off my foot if I am honest and looks insane (re thinking the bright colour in favour of a skin tone for future lol) but the impact it made upon the swelling was beyond outstanding.  Within a week the foot looked like this.

I was blown away, while there is still swelling it went down so fast and is far more comfortable than the compression socks.  

After a month the swelling is the best it has been since the injury, while I still have a small amount around the ankle joint I have loose skin around the top of the foot and toes again.  I can also leave it untaped over night if I wish and it does not swell straight back up.  

This is my foot today, I am over the moon with it, I am hoping to buy some new shoes now I can fit the swollen foot back into one.  It's been 3 years I have been wearing compression stockings and doing the physio exercises I was given with absolutely no effect.  I sincerely wish I had taken the leap of faith sooner and tried it but now I have there is no way I will be going back!

I have been unable to find anything much about how it works but all I know is that it has for me as you can see with amazing results!  

Blackpool Trip 2

My second trip started with some bad news, one of my favourite performers injured herself and is now off the show.  I am absolutely gutted for her, hope she gets better soon!  I sincerely missed her during the performance, however it did open up the chance for me to see one of the swings on which always excites me.

I managed a little bit of sight seeing this trip and the camera clicking tourist in me came out!  OH NO!!!

The first full day I woke up and was not in as much pain as usual, the sun was out so I decided to go and investigate one of the piers, I am not sure which one it is but it was really run down, it was pretty sad.

The view however was stunning!  This was the view from the start of the pier of the next pier.

It's been many years since I have been to Blackpool but I have to admit I had never noticed that there was no sand beach but simply the steps at this end of the Beach.  I am clearly so used to Scarborough!

This is the view in the opposite direction, as you can see the building looks so worn out it's sad.  I did not actually take photos of this, but at the start of the pier there were several sections so worn and weathered there were barriers up to stop access to them.  What worried me was that these were not safely fastened in place and several had simply fallen over.

The state of the whole pier upset me, they are such an important part of our heritage and yet so little used these days.  I do not understand why there is not more done on them, the view is beautiful and in a warm conservatory type building I am sure people would come and sit to eat/drink while watching the sea even during the winter if they got better roofing and sides for people on the walkways also.  For me it would be worth the money from a city that draws in HUGE crows in September onwards with the lights being on.  They could even have lights on the piers and have people walk along them to view them!  

Just look at the state of the current seating along the side!  Would you feel safe stopping here?

Just a simple view at the end but such a waste of area, the most beautiful view and not even anywhere for visitors to sit?! 

This one just had to make the blog, as a theatre fan I spend a lot of my time at stage doors, so when I spotted this on the pier at the side of the pub it made me smile.  

Just a pretty view - so many seats, I would have loved to have seen it when it was busy and in use!

After my walk along the front, I ended up in the arcades and had a little play on the 2p slots.  I get very addicted to clearing out a machine of some toy that I will never use!  I am just grateful it's a 2p addiction and nothing worse lol!  

Look what happened after 3 days at the seaside and several trips to the various arcades!  

Oh well at least I had fun and as you can see I won the fight with the key rings lol! 

Cats - new cast!

MY TRIP! 

I have been away for a few days watching the new cast of Cats the Musical, it's currently showing at the Opera House in Blackpool, within the Winter Gardens complex.

I have not been to Blackpool for many years so I was a mixture of excited and worried that I would manage with me health issues.

HOTEL!

I wanted to stop with Travelodge however they were all at the far end of the beach and also very expensive so I opted to try a B&B.  This is very rare for me due to my sleeping issues, however it was so cheap I was able to pay for an extra night and check out as late as I wanted.  Worked out nicely! 

I rang ahead to make sure my room was ready however upon arrival I found that they had forgotten to get the room ready for me.  Not the best start lol.  

The room was tiny, a little dusty and in need of a good vaccum but overall clean enough and certainly comfortable.

THE WINTER GARDENS!

The theatre was closer than I realised which was really nice to discover, as I found that there was a short cut through a side entrance to the Winter Gardens.

It was however sad to see some of the Winter Gardens in such a run down state see the photos below of one of the old entrances!

Once inside you got to the areas in use it is a different matter, they have really kept up the building and it is beautiful, I did not get any photos but will on my next trip!  

THE SHOW!

I was let down by my seat once I got into the show, a large section of the stage was limited by the side of the set.  I would not have minded if the seat had been a restricted view chair, however it was a premium seat!  

The section sticking out is the side of the set, it is at an angle so there was things happening that were blocked from my view.  

The seat was also loacking in leg room and the stage a little high for a premium view seat.  

My first night at the show was the casts second live show, I was throughly impressed by everyone involved. I doubt anyone in the audience would have guessed this fact if they did not know.  

Notable performaces for me were the new twins (tantomile and copricat) the pairing is perfect, they really do echo each other well but also had me stunned wich some of the impressive lifts they performed.

Clare and Paul who play jellylorum and Gus shone for me as always, during a lot of the show while Clare has a number of important singing numbers its her solo that really makes her shine, she's able to portray how gentle, caring and motherly that Jellylorum is one minute then jump into the evil Lady Griddlebone where clare switches to a rather sexy naughty all white cat. 

Equally Paul amazes with hisbrilliant portrayal of a very elderly cat remembering his youth then jumps within seconds into the evil partner of Lady Griddlebone. 

I was especially excited to see Danielle Cato's performance as Cassandra.  I have seen Danielle in a number of shows, but always as a dancer until now.  She is a very talented beautiful dancer, she always stands out on stage for me, so it did not shock me that her performance was beautifully done, however she also nailed her solo singing which made me smile because this is the first show I have seen her with a solo vocal section.   I also loved the part when she tried to get away from being chosen by Misto for the magic trick, she managed to look shocked but still hold that air of refinement that we expect of Cass.  

I enjoyed the new mungo and Rumple but I have to admit I did miss the previous duo that performed the part a little.  The old Mungo was so cheeky he was always funny to watch.  The new pair were amazing though and equal in their performance and acro skills.  

Jane MacDonald looked very old and sad as Grizz, I have to admit I was very unsure what to expect from her but once she opened up and really started singing I found I was not actually breathing.  She absolutely floored me!  At the end of Memory she actually started crying and I found myself wanting to literally reach out to her, I felt so sorry for her I wanted to comfort her.  

STAGE DOOR!

After the show I nipped to the stage door, it was so lovely to see an inside one for a change.  

I managed to grab a photo with Clare and Danielle 😊

CLARE - JELLYLORUM/LADY GRIDDLEBONE

DANIELLE - CASSANDRA

Overall a lovely first night other than the view!