Vignettes from surreal weekend in Wales

I always have an extremely good time when I go to the Abergavenny Food Festival - even if that good time is retrospective.

This most recent trip did not disappoint. Full of odd moments and odd people alongside best friend and cherished eccentric friend.

Two highlights of the weekend (other than meeting some marvelous people - new friends and old):

1. Quote of the weekend:

'You just sat there, all night, like Henry VIII - eating cheese'.

2. Shakespearean move of the weekend:

Trying to dispatch a less than exemplary staff member by sending her to the festival office with a sealed note to the organiser telling them to redeploy her as she was useless. She didn't know what was in the note, but she had enough low native cunning to know it wasn't going to be a good ending for her - so she refused to go. This was kind of like when the King of Denmark dispatched Rosencrantz and Gildenstern to the King of England with a note telling him to execute the bearers of the note. It may be cruel, but it is efficient. As I say, however, she was having none of it.

I have several lovely souvenirs and now need to lie down for a week to recover.

Bloody awful thing

Schroedinger posited that you couldn't know whether his famous fictional cat was dead or alive until you opened the box because it went in alive and at some point died, but without checking in the box, you couldn't tell when exactly. So, without the absolute knowledge, your opinion of whether the cat was with us (or not) was equally correct and incorrect.

During the week my dad's best friend died. It was not sudden. He had been grotesquely ill for some time. But he will be missed sorely, particularly by my beloved father who I would do anything for and for whom my heart is breaking.

In the way that can only happen when you live in a small, closely knit city, it happened that my whole family knew of this man's passing before my dad did. My sister found out through her husband's friend who happened to be his godson. My mother found out through someone phoning the house looking to let my dad know. I found out through someone at work who was talking about their best friend's father who had died that morning.

None of us wanted to phone my dad to tell him or track him down to let him know in person. Not because we didn't want to be the bearer of bad news and to upset him. Well, perhaps there was a small element of that particular cowardice. But really it was because for those few precious hours his friend was still alive for him. Eventually, we knew that he'd have to know, but then forever, his friend was irrevocably lost.

I know that the pain now is the cost of love then, but it is a terrible price to pay.

What just happened?

Went on an old fashioned date last night, with someone I have had a very VERY lovely mini adventure with recently and who I am unusually keen on. And nothing.

I mean really nothing.

We had drinks, dinner, a show, more drinks, long looooooooooooooong chats, all of a reasonably interesting and private nature. I deftly managed to avoid the usual pitfalls of talking about myself (I didn't) sounding like a know-all (I was on guard) and looked OK (boobiness but not too much and makeup). Then, out on the street, nothing.

No kiss, no fumble, nothing. He just walked away. In fact, sprinted. He sprinted away.

Jesus. I am in the 'friend' box. Somehow, I was put there during the evening.

How the fuck did this happen?