Breaking the silence

It's a very quiet afternoon at work - I'm over at what might be described as the secondary theatre for which I'm now selling tickets and the only other person here has gone for lunch, so I'm taking advantage of the lack of customers. Yes, I am still around.

So, what's been going on? The Festival finished in something of a blaze: five visitors over the space of one week, which was just about as many my (not enormous) flat could hold. I got to quite a few shows in the final week, which I'll try and add to the reviews by the end of next week.

As soon as the Festival finished, I started my new job over at the Edinburgh Festival and King's Theatres, very similar work to the EIF but concentrating on two venues alone. There's a huge variety of shows on, from opera to the horrors of the Singing Kettle (a Scottish show aimed at young children), so it's mostly good fun and, a definite bonus this, better paid than my last job.

The ballet I was in was, for the most part, a lot of fun. I'll write a more detailed entry on it in due course, complete with a photo of me in pig costume, so for now I'll just say that I was a bit of a naughty boy when we all went out clubbing after the final performance. These dancers, I'm telling you!

Last week brought a very pleasant surprise my way: I joined a small group in going to see The Queen (a superb film, incidentally, highly recommended) and afterwards got talking to this one guy, got on like a house on fire, good chemistry, absolutely no complaints save that he was leaving the following morning for three weeks in the States. We're making arrangements to see each other again when he gets back at the end of this month, so watch this space. In the meantime, the wait is proving rather frustrating.

After such a long absence, you'd hope I'd be around for a while. However, this Sunday marks the first anniversary of my father's death so I'm going to be away for a few days at my mother's. She and my brother have been doing fantastically well, but understandably these couple of weeks have been getting increasingly difficult for the three of us. One of the altos in the choir, who lost her own husband some years ago, told me from the start it's the first year that's the most difficult, after which it becomes a lot easier. Roll on Monday ...