My secret shame

Although I am from the Take That generation, I didn't exactly notice their music until Take That Take 2 really, so Robbie Williams was just some popstar I heard about.  I didn't own any of his CDs, and could probably hum along maybe to a couple of his more popular songs, but I really couldn't see what all the fuss was about.  In 2006 however, during our stint of living Down Under, I became really homesick; and when Robbie announced his Close Encounters tour, I felt he represented a real live slice of Britain I just had to have.  So that's what I went for, a little something from home... I came back however with a new middle-aged crushsession, and a collection of back catalogue CDs and DVDs grew from that.

So last weekend I was lucky enough to have a friend who had some spare tickets for the Help for Heroes concert, where Robbie Williams was the headline act.  Needless to say, I was looking forward to seeing his performance, and he did not disappoint. There was the dancing, the shouting, the bouncing, the sweating...
But something was missing.

I think what used to fuel the Robbie Williams fantasy for me was the fact that he was always searching for The One, and whilst he never found it, he wrote heartfelt lyrics and stared adoringly into the crowd for their energy to fill the spaces in his heart.   It tapped into the dormant teenage, but-i-can-change-him fantasy, and made me feel 15 again.  For me that was the small but magic ingredient in a Robbie Williams concert, and my secret shame.

However now, where he once needed the love and adulation of thousands, it seemed he would have sooner been curled up on the sofa with all 44 inches of Mrs William's legs wrapped around him watching TV.  And who could blame him?

As a selfish woman who enjoyed her brief fantasy forays, I am gutted.
But as someone who gets to curl up in the nook of the man she loves every night, I know there is no greater thing in life; and I am delighted for him.
That Ayda is one lucky lady.