Much to my shame I didn’t even realise it was the First Night. I thought we were just trotting along to watch our good friend, Peter sing…at the Proms. I duly caught the 2.37 and met husband at Waterloo. We hooked up with our other friends and ate in the Café Consort, sharing a nice bottle of Pinot, rustic bread, olives. I ate Pumpkin & sweet potato Thai red curry with jasmine rice & grilled lime relish. Food was all vey fine but the food was all a bit secondary as the restaurant was just a lovely place to be pre Proms on a sunny July evening. A mix of art deco and Albert hall tradition. I had forgotten what a truly amazing venue the Albert Hall is. I think the last concert I was really  impressed with there was Sting and the Dream of the Blue Turtles about 20 odd years ago and I haven’t been back enough times since. Prom 1 felt like a  very special event. The music was Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand…all in German and if honest a bit high brow musically for me but sitting there in the middle of it all last night I felt quite privileged. The combination of the dedicated promenaders all standing in the centre of the hall, the hundreds talented musicians and choristers full of skill and passion, all just coming together to make the most wonderful sound happen… seems an odd thing to say but I was just loving the human-ness of it all. There was a sort of an epitome of human achievement coming together in the architecture, the acoustic and the passion and talent…was one of those proud to be part of the human race sort of evenings!