Antonia, Michael, Meryl and Beth
on the Cadbury Land ride
Dear Tour Diary,
29th March 2003 – Brimingham
A bit of a lie in this morning for most of us and we made the most of ordering breakfast to our rooms which was lovely. The breakfast came in a nifty solid plastic box that had little compartments where the food was hidden away. Yummy cereal, pastries and fresh fruit salad set us up for the day.
Tom and Danny stayed at the hotel with Andy the driver and had a mammoth lie-in.
Meryl, Toni, Beth, Michael, Saranne, Emily and Dave the driver went to Cadbury World! As we got close to the factory we opened the windows and could smell the delicious aroma of chocolate in the air and by the time we parked and made our way to the entrance we were all jumping around with excitement as cholcolate is most definitely our thing!
Loving Cadbury chocolate!!!
We were shown around by a wonderful man, Colin who made sure that we were well looked after and learnt a lot of fascinating chocolate facts. We discussed the differences between chocolate in New Zealand and in England and found out that there are varieties that are popular overseas but do not take off in the UK and vice versa.
We had a great time looking at all the displays and going on the wee ride through chocolate bean land but by far our favourite part of the tour was when we got to taste actual chocolate liquid. It was still warm and it tasted – man, it tasted so good!
Hundreds of fans came to
see The Tribe in Birmingham
After Beth bought up the whole store we jumped back into the bus (feeling a bit sickly if truth be told) and drove to the BigW where we were welcomed by the most fantastic team of staff.
They brought us sandwiches and coffee and noticed that we were a bit tired so even brought in a couple of double mattresses and duvets! We all had a power nap before Dan and Tom arrived and then we had a bot of time with a fan called Sara Sehdev and her sisters, Jotie and Aarita (hope we got that right guys – it’s pretty late now and our brains are frazzled!!)
Then it was time to head downstairs to the front of the store where we set ourselves up at some tables and started to sign autographs. There was a huge crowd, around 1,000 people lining up around the side of the store and we were there for three and a half hours. We met up with some fans that we get to see on each tour and who always make the effort to come out and say hi. It was great to see Sophie, Lorraine, Rhiannon, Sian, CK and the Mole among others and we had a bot of a laugh taking pictures of each other.
Signing at Big W in Birmingham
Special love and hugs to Hope and Paige who were a bit upset when their Mum had a bit of a bad turn in the queue as she had been waiting for several hours.
After the signing we all got changed and headed off for a lovely Birmingham curry before making our way back to London.
We arrived just before midnight and were all pretty exhausted but glad to be back ‘home’ where we can unpack for the week ahead. We love our London hotel and have some great rooms that are really comfy.
So after writing the tour diary we crashed onto our beds and slept the night away with dreams of Camden Market tomorrow morning – but we will all sit down and watch the last episode of Revelations first with Tom. It’s a great one with Laura Wilson (May) in it so it will be really good to watch it together.
The Touring Tribe
Bringing the Dream to the World