Arrived Cardiff around 5 on Thursday and met Jo and some bloke called Tofara from Zimbabwe in the Prince of Wales. Within an hour the group had grown exponentially to include Gail and Tom plus 4 or 5 people I didn’t really know. Pubbing pretty much became the trend for the rest of the weekend, which was no bad thing, although it’s all beginning to catch up on me now.
Friday included a string of ATMs which refused to work instead prefering to throw out random bits of paper and make dialing up to the internet type noises. Eventually found some money from a working machine, or at least a machine which would take my card.
Food was the order of the day on Friday, starting with a full English Breakfast in a café in an area called Canton. Later Gail, Jo and I visited Henry’s, a lively bistro in town where I got me a 12 ounce steak. Think I’m putting on waight. Ug.
The Classical concert was great. At the aptly named St David’s Hall Gail and I heard Schubert’s unfinished symphony, a concerto for double strings by Tipit and Beethoven’s piano concerto number 5. Met Jo and Toff in a pub afterward.
Saturday we met up with Del, Lee, and Anne. Toff was still around for a little while as the trains were disrupted as a woman was threatening to jump off a bridge on to the line on the approach to Cardiff Central. Saturday night was not quite as carried away as the previous two evenings, although I did manage to spend substantially, and a decent enough time was had all round.
During the night, Del’s snoring rocked Jo’s flat to it’s very foundations. One of our number made a hasty exit pretty early on Sunday. It’s unclear if these two events were related.
Sunday afternoon Del Jo and I rounded things off with a tremendous Sunday lunch in yet another of Cardiff’s finest public houses. The Rumma I think it was called.
And at around 6PM Jo did the honours and walked me to catch my train from Cardiff Central back to Preston. I’m expecting a replacement bus service for part of the journey as the work on the west coast main line seems to be continuing. Oh joy. Hope to be in before 11PM as I have work tonight.
There are many anecdotes from the last few days which are probably deserving of a blog post of their own. But I really don’t have the energy to write them up and they probably wouldn’t work as well in this medium.
So back to work now.