Stardate 22nd May, 2026. Gelli Gandryll. Our journey here from intergalactic port LHR T5 was uneventful and even, as we left the motorways for the leafy green lanes approaching Y Gelli, quite pleasant. The open windows of the Silver Bullet served as air conditioning as we meandered past fields full of cattle, sheep and fruit trees miscellaneous.
We arrived Kilvert’s Inn at one thirty to find a parking space (at a premium) and a room already prepared for us (we were early). The landlady did express a degree of concern when it came to tomorrow’s breakfast as one phase of the pub’s three phase electricity supply had failed and not yet been fixed. An electrician was hard at work in the background. The backup for tomorrow’s breakfast is the Old Black Lion just down the road and where we are dining tonight.
We’ve been chillin for a couple of hours in our room on the top floor floor but are now stirring. THG has a lecture to go to at five thirty. I don’t. I don’t like to overdo the attendance at talks but do like the overall atmosphere of the town. The Literary Festival itself is packed with trendy Guardian readers sporting tote bags full of the latest releases. These are purchaysed from the festival book shop at top dollar. No Oxfam Bookshop in sight as was the case at the Eisteddfod once and where I was able to source some fine, albethey fairly obscure, Welsh books on religious history.
Emerald Fennel. That’s who THG is going to see. I did post the question as to whether that was a nom de plume but THG seems to think not. I dunno.
Y Gelli Gandryll, or Hay on Wye for those not in the know, is a world away from Sorrento and the Bay of Naples. Just as hot mind you. The heatwave has just begun here in the UK. I am confident that I have an adequate supply of silk Hawaiian shirts for the long weekend but the rest of the week, which will be spent in Cardiff and Aberystwyth, is another story. I packed two bags for this trip. One for Sorrento and one for Wales. The Welsh bag packing assumed the more variable climate of the land of song. I’ll work that one out when it becomes a problem. I’m sure @Sue must have a washing machine in her spanking new kitchen which we are excited to go and view for the first time.
Sorrento was a whirlwind. A telecoms business conference called Inspiration Day that attracts Netaxis customers, prospects and partners from mostly Europe but also the Americas, Middle East and Africa. This one was a huge success (natch) and was topped off with a visit to Pompei en route to the airport where we arrived too early to checkin and so sat on an uncomfortable metal bench for perhaps an hour or so.
Even when checked in the facilities at the airport are not particularly good but we met upo with the Burckhardts and Matt Dore near the gate where a small bar served cold beer and kept us hydrated. Pompei was very interesting.
We crammed a lot in to our time in Sorrento and even though much of it was work we did make it to Capri and I joined a select band of soulmates for dinner at a marinaside gaff called Soul & Fish. Once our bags finally arrived, 2 and 4 days late, the turmoil of having to shop for clean underware was forgotten. I also made a mental note that the breakfast restaurant was setup like a game of pacman. The tables were all in a grid. When you turned down one channel which had been clear at the start someone else would enter it causing you to turn left or right to go around them.
That’ll do. It’s too hot to write any more.
Hwyl cariad