This year the Eurovision Song Contest was held in Vienna, Austria and it coincided with a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK so there was no need to rush back home on the Sunday . . . . although as we are both not working at present we could have, in hindsight, booked a flight back at anytime!

Given we did not know what our employment situation was going to be when we booked our flights to Austria we booked a late afternoon departure from Gatwick which seemed a sensible option and, in the end, gave us plenty of time to head south and have a late lunch in Croydon before heading to the airport. We did however meet up with some of our group on the train to London and at St Pancras itself with us all then splitting up again in order to catch flights from different airports and terminals. Our flight from Gatwick was over an hour late so it was much later than we originally planned for us when we all finally met up at our Viennese hotel.

The Stadhalle in Vienna, holding around 10,000 people was hosting the actual contest, and boy what a show it was! We actually saw the final dress rehearsal which took place at lunchtime in the Stadhalle and then returned to our hotel to see the grand final which worked well - it also meant that given the final votes being awarded at nearly one o'clock in the morning it was not far to get to bed - after a few additional night caps!

People can be rather dismissive of the Eurovision Song Contest, but with viewing figures approaching 200 million from over 40 countries, there is obviously an appetite for the world's biggest song contest. Maybe in the UK we just need to do something very different to engage with the wider public because the actual show is very slick, well organised and overall is brilliant musical entertainment.

You probably can not get away from 'neighbourly' voting but the best songs really were at the top of the leader board with Sweden taking the winning spot. You do need to appeal to a wide audience, both east and west Europe (and Australia this year!), in order to win and of course from the 27 songs in the grand final only ten of those will get any points from each voting country - you get nothing for being the eleventh most popular song and seventeen countries will get nothing from every voting country. Even though the UK entry got only a handful of points France, Austria (nil points) and Germany (also nil points) did worse than us - so it is not all bad news!

We did get to see a bit of Vienna too during the weekend in and around the city centre area - which was busy on a Sunday even though the shops were closed - including St Stephen's Cathedral, the Hofburg Palace, Schonbrunn Palace Gardens, the Rathaus (Town Hall) and the Prater amusement park. So it was not all Eurovision Song Contest action for the whole weekend!

Of course, travelling with good friends makes the weekend and much fun was had, many beers (and the odd wine or two) were drunk and we sampled some typical Austrian cuisine as well. A big thank you to our very own Mr Eurovision (Chris), Gail, John and Rita for sharing laughs and embarrassing stories over the weekend.

So will we be in Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmo next year? Maybe some speculative hotel bookings will be in order to cover off the likely options before prices rise!