Enormous meals where even the half portions are about three times the norm, and enormous people – I have never seen so many mobility scooters in my life! After all the rehearsing, coaching, fund raising and organising, it was finally time – the Sweet Adelines International Competition was on and we were the United Kingdom representatives!

The glitter, sparkle and bling were out in force. Nowhere else would you see women wearing crowns and pushing a stroller down the street, but that's the world of Sweet Adelines! Those royals were the Queens of Harmony – past winners of the International Quartet Competition. But everyone there had something diamante with medals flashing, treble and bass clefs and Bari badges twinkling. Where else can you go out blinged up to the nines and still look underdressed?

With five hours of rehearsal a day for the first three days, we found thigh muscles we didn’t know we had. I had to go to a remedial hair session as it’s all about big hair on stage – never have I seen so much back-combing! By the afternoon of the big day we were still jet-lagged and exhausted from practising, but buzzing and ready to go. We were driven to the Thomas & Mack Convention Centre, a 10,000 seater sports auditorium, and were finally backstage, ready, pumped and adrenaline rushing - it was time.

Wow, what an atmosphere! We strode confidently on, wearing our biggest, cheesiest grins, mouths dry, butterflies stampeding and all we could see was people. We could see and hear where our Brit supporters were by the yelling and flag waving, the Australians and New Zealanders were waving hard, and our coach Åse was going nuts in the front section waving her Swedish flag so hard it flew out of her hands! The announcement was made, the pitch pipes blew, Jenny our Director started us off and we were singing. Six minutes later the rest of the front row and I had ripped off our skirts, we were breathless, over the moon and the cheering and applause was deafening. The Ballad had got them crying, straining forward for the last note, the Up-Tune had made them laugh and we were on top of the world.

We came 23rd out of 33 competitors, the best ever result for a UK entry. We also came 19th in the all important Sound category. The UK has a reputation for being very safe, careful, and, frankly, very ladylike, but we blew them away with a ballsy, confident performance. The 'little English girl' image had been smashed!

So now it’s back to work with new songs for the UK competition, this year being held in the Birmingham Symphony Hall, and for me a new job as Competition Coordinator which is very exciting. We are really aiming for Gold this year because if we win, the 2008 International competition is in Hawaii – Aloha!

Emma Riley