Friday 8th – Sunday 10th October 2021

What started as an evening out to see Billy Ocean, turned into an unexpected weekend in Bournmouth and ended in Vikki getting Covid-19!

Friday

As Steve was working we couldn’t leave early so we thought we’d be organised, sussed out parking, checked what time the show started etc so we wouldn’t be rushing around like mad things. As with all best laid plans that went out the window and the evening started with us rushing around like mad things!

The tickets said the show was at 6.30pm, as there was no time to eat out, the evening started with us creating a record for the fastest ever meal at Steve’s before heading off. We arrived, got parked (suspiciously easily) and headed into the Bournemouth International Centre thinking we had just enough time to get a drink before Billy Ocean started. How wrong we were!

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There weren’t that many people there and the doors weren’t even open, so we got a drink and people watched for a little while, realising that Billy Ocean fans are generally of an older age!

We found our seats and while waiting thought we would look online at where our seats will be when we come back in Dec to see Steps, while doing that we discovered that Jason Donovan was playing the following evening and that there were tickets left – no way was Steve escaping that one, Vikki booked tickets straight away!

Eventually, after about an hour, a warm up act came on and then Billy Ocean appeared on stage for his set. Great music and good atmosphere, really nice evening. On the drive back to Steve’s we decided to book a hotel for after Jason as poor Steve had been stuck on the non-alcoholic beer while Vikki enjoyed several glasses of red wine!

Saturday

Quick search on hotels.com and we booked a hotel for the night, packed up and headed back to Bournemouth. Hotel was perfectly central and very nice, somehow we had booked an accessible room so they swapped that for a regular one which was very pleasant, although it had a rather odd duel purpose door – shutting the bathroom door opened the wardrobe and vice versa! Oh and the view of the car park wasn’t the most picturesque!

We went for a wander to suss out where the Bournemouth Pavillion was as Jason wasn’t playing in the in the same place as Billy. The centre of Bournmouth was heaving and it turned out there had been a running event that day which had just finished. After last nights rushed meal we decided to try and book somewhere for dinner, however everywhere seemed to be booked up so that wasn’t happening!

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The weather was great so after nice long walk on the beach and a climb up a LOT of steps we chilled out in the sun with a gin and beer enjoying the view before picking up a takeaway 5 guys burger to take back to the hotel. A quick drink in the bar and off to the Pavillion we went to see JASON!!!!!

A very different audience to the previous night, and as it turned out a lot louder and more active too!! We found our seats and bizarrely the people in front of us turned out to be school parents who recognised Vikki – it’s a small world!

Jason was amazing! The atmosphere was fantastic, some much dancing and singing, primarily by Vikki but even Steve got caught up in the enthusiasm and couldn’t resist a little dance!

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After the excitement of Jason and all dancing we were quite hungry so decided to get some chips, after circling the centre of Bournmouth what felt like about 5 times we eventually found a chip shop and got some yummy, fresh, hot chippy chips to eat on the way back to the hotel where we ended the night with a drink at the bar.

Sunday

Another beautiful sunny day in Bournmouth, started with a pretty sub standard breakfast and absolutely minging coffee so we headed to Costa. A little morning entertainment when we discovered the hand wash dispenser was in the shower and the shower gel dispenser over by the sink!

After checking out we went to visit Vikki’s cousin for coffee before catching the new James Bond film and heading home. All in all a really lovely last minute, fun filled weekend. Even if Vikki did start to feel unwell within a couple of days and test positive for Covid 4 days later!!