Pride in my children

Tuesday night was the school presentation evening.
This year we were in for a treat as it was to be held at Pride Park stadium in the very illustrious Toyota suite.
As always DS was playing in the band so we had to get there a little earlier. I ordered a taxi for 5pm as I knew the traffic would be bad so the usual 10 mins journey could take anything up to half an hour. I wasn't far wrong. We zipped through town and got caught up on Bradshaw way and then Traffic st for what felt like hours. Then up Pride park way was easy until we got to Egg and then it took 10 minutes to travel about 100yds to the stadium.

We were the first to arrive but it wasn't long before the rest of the band started to arrive.
One of the girls came with her parents and as they didn't want to sit around, they asked me if I wanted to go for a drink with them. I jumped at the chance, not for the drink but for the chance to hang out with some other adults for a change and to get to know some other parents which I haven't had the chance to do since my 2 went to that school.
We couldn't go in the BBG as there was a kids party on so we walked round to the JJB complex which has a sports bar. I have never been there before so that was an experience. We sat down and chatted for about half an hour before we started walking back up to the stadium.

When we got inside, the band were playing and people were already queueing up the stairs. I found DD and we got ourselves a seat.

There was lots of speeches to start and the head told a story about Charles schultz who drew the Peanuts cartoons

Then it was onto the presentations. As always with these things it was just like a conveyer belt. Names were called pretty fast and the children would troop upto the stage, get their awards and sit down again. It was in in alphabetical order in order of year.
1 ludicrous thing they have done this year though is move all the children up a year in June. so although technically DS is still in yr 8, he was in the yr 9 list...very confusing - Especially for me!


Once the official proceedings were over, it was pretty casual and there was a chance for everyone to sit outside and take in the magnificence of the stadium. Everyone was taking pictures of their children in front of the pitch and it was a lovely informal end to the night.
I sat chatting to the couple from earlier and they were trying to work out where they sit and were telling me about their trip to Wembley for the play-off final (I wasn't jealous one bit...)

I called a taxi home and we arrived back about 8pm after getting ourselves some chips for a late tea.

1 more outing for the term will be the Summer concert next week, then we are all done for another year.