Michaels Graduation Day in The Barbican Hall London

Even though whist working full time over the last three years he has also studied for a Degree in Health Studies at the St Georges College in London with the graduation ceremony taking place in London on 18th July to which we all looked forward to attending.
For all of us it was an early morning, as part of the organisation Michael was provided with two tickets, so one for Jennifer and Becky and the author needed to purchase a ticket which was on a first come first saved basis with ticket office opening at 08.00 IN LONDON. So Noel and Jen were up at 05.45 to get ready to catch a train at 0650 and then got a big shock as we were leaving the house to find that a large branch from our Tree of Heaven had dropped and was blocking half the road, and so a quick sort out was necessary and  what to do.? Well all we could do is pull it to the side of the road and head off to the Station.

We arrived at the Barbican at about 0745 and its a massive place with lots of halls and cinemas and art galleries and we finally located the ticket office and there were lots of people standing around waiting for it to open but just to be sure we jumped to the far left hand ticket sales desk and asked them if were in the right place, yes they said, OK to wait here till you are ready, yes they said and then ten minutes later I had a choice of any one of 300 seats and chose a balcony view aisle. Shortly afterwards we went to the café for a burnt bun with some burnt bacon and a cup of tea, poor quality stuff for a high price. Michael and Becky with Ethan arrived and we settled down and Michael went off to get his robe and tickets and apparently there was chaos with literally its seemed hundreds of students all looking to do the same. They announced that the graduation was about to start and of we went hoping that Michael would be ready in time, which finally he was after about one hours waiting.



The tutors in all their fine robes arrived and filled the stage and then over the next 2.5 hours they made speeches and presentations to various people and then finally they started presenting the graduates one by one. Most of the names called out were clearly not English and some of the African names caused some problems and we waited and waited and finally Michael's name was read out he walked across the stage, shook hands with the Principal, and off the stage all in about 20 seconds. There was guy sitting next to me when the ceremony first started ready with his camera to take a photo of a family member but after a while he got bored and went to sleep and missed the name being called out.
We left the Barbican and headed for Waterloo Station and had a meal in one of the restaurants and then we both headed home, us to Weybridge and Michael and Becky to Aldershot. All of us were rather tired after an early start and we were in bed that night before 22.00 and in the meantime had almost finished loading the car for our travels down to Somerset tomorrow morning for a few days in the caravan and to see Joanne, Tim and the grandchildren..
A GREAT day and were of course very proud of what our son Michael has achieved and helped no end by Becky.