A Play and some Planets

Our long drive home from Warwickshire on Friday was made even longer by roadworks on the M6 near Manchester. It meant that we didn’t get home until tea time, but we made the best of the journey by listening to a few episodes of a podcast about the Apollo 11 moon landing, called 13 Minutes to the Moon. It is fascinating and made the time fly by.
On Saturday morning I booked some events for the Edinburgh Book Festival in August. I logged in as soon as the tickets became available because there are some really exciting authors who I want to see this year, for example Thomas Keneally, who is a hero of mine. I was pleased to nab all of the tickets that I wanted. Then off I set to Oran Mor where I was meeting three of my lovely ex-colleagues, Elaine, Jenn and David, to see A Play, a Pie and a Pint. I arrived first so I bagged some excellent seats, and then who did I happen to meet but John, one of the former head teachers from the school that we all used to work at. When the others arrived we all had a good chat; he was so excited to see us that I wonder if he’s a bit lonely. The play was absolutely brilliant. Written by Denise Mina, it’s called Ida Tamson, and starred Elaine C. Smith. It has such a good story, and a great ending. The audience gave it a standing ovation. One of the other actors was Joy McAvoy, who is the sister of well-known actor James McAvoy, and he was watching it from the front row!
After the play we spoke briefly to Denise Mina, who is a second cousin of Jenn’s, and then the four of us spent a hilarious afternoon in Oran Mor’s bar. I had meant to go shopping before meeting James in town later, but I totally ran out of time and went straight to the Royal Concert Hall, where James and I went to see Holst’s The Planets. Oh boy it was fantastic. There was a large screen above the orchestra, on which film of each planet was projected as its music was playing. It was all great but for me Jupiter’s music stood out above the rest. Just amazing.