Ben Howard in Birmingham

Today Sophie and I were very excited as it was the day we were off to see Ben Howard at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham!

I went into work first, to get a few things done, and then Keith and I returned home at lunchtime. It was a gorgeous day with lots of sunshine and blue skies. After a lunch of sandwiches, Sophie went off to get ready while I pottered about and made sure I knew where we were going in Birmingham. We'd never been to the Barclaycard Arena before but it was formerly known as the National Indoor Arena and I knew it was right in the centre of the city.

We set off at 3pm and I keyed the postcode into Gladys. I was fine with the route onto the M6 but knew I would need her assistance when we came off the motorway. Now, I don't know whether she was a bit confused with concert venues as she told us to exit the M6 and go onto the M42, towards the NEC...I followed her instructions but then she directed us back the way we'd driven! We very nearly had a bump in the car on a roundabout as the car in front had stopped and I'd happened to glance at the SatNav screen and hadn't realised...all I can say is that the brakes on my car are very good indeed as I stopped with millimetres to spare!

We drove back onto the M6 and then came off at the correct junction. Gladys by now, was freaking out a little, so we turned her off and stuffed her into the glove compartment. It was much easier to follow the signs!

We parked in the huge car park and managed to make sense of the parking meter. I used my debit card and paid until midnight so I knew we would have enough parking time. The NIA is right on the canal so we wandered about a bit and had a look at the various eating places available, one of which was Ed's Diner. We'd looked at their online menu already and decided it would be a good place to eat before the concert.

As we still had plenty of time we wandered over to a canalside pub and had a drink there. Lots of people were arriving for drinks and we were amused to see two German girls turn up, obviously for the Ben Howard concert. We both did wonder whether they'd been at the concert we went to in Berlin!

After our drink we went back to Ed's Diner and were seated straight away. We chose chilli cheese fries to share as a starter then Sophie enjoyed a burger while I opted for chicken goujons served with a BBQ sauce and a Jalapeno jelly. We found room to share a dessert as well...waffles served with vanilla ice-cream and chocolate sauce! It was a great place to eat but the service was a little slow. That was fine for us as we had plenty of time but I could see some diners getting a little agitated and a couple on the table next to us left as nobody had appeared to take their order. We vowed to return as directly opposite was the Sea Life centre and I thought it would be good to bring the whole family and then eat at the diner afterwards.

After paying the bill we went into the NIA itself and Sophie bought a "I Forget Where We Were" tee-shirt. People were starting to arrive for the 7.30pm start time so we found our seats high up above the middle standing area and settled down to watch everyone arrive. We were amused, again, to see the two German girls take their seats a couple of rows below us!

Ben Howard's support act, Aero Flynn, were brilliant. They were very similar in style to Ben Howard and we really enjoyed listening to their music. I even bought a copy of their CD after the show!

Ben came on at 9pm and played until almost 11pm. He played all of the tracks on his latest album, plus quite a few from his previous one, including The Fear, which Sophie and I love. He did two new songs and we thought the show was absolutely fantastic, especially when he did Rivers in Your Mouth (one of my favourites) and which is due to be released as a single. It went on and on and with all the lights and the whole atmosphere, it was fabulous!

Afterwards I bought a tee-shirt for Mike and we made our way back to the car-park with thousands of other people. We managed to get out of the car park quickly but we became lost again and couldn't find signs for the M6. I was forced to turn Gladys on again and she led us a merry dance down dark streets and along residential areas, finally taking us to a dead end street. I retraced the route, found the ring road and eventually saw the very welcome signs for the M6 which we followed with sighs of relief. I did not want to get lost in Birmingham and end up in a dodgy area!

Back on the motorway we listened to Aero Flynn and both agreed that we love their music, which is very good when you're driving fast down a dark road!