A Ludlow Day

Well, Kim and I set off for Ludlow on Friday afternoon, having booked a hotel room for the night, so that we were fresh for the Esoteric book Conference and festival. It was rainy, grey and the traffic was unspeakable but, we got there and had a quick look around the town before collapsing into our beds.

Saturday dawned much brighter and we drove into Ludlow town centre to discover the horrors of parking in the town; eventually we managed it and took ourselves off to a rather nice little eatery for breakfast and a trough of tea. As it was Saturday, the town centre market was in full swing and we wandered towards the Assemebly Rooms through stalls of hats, cards, food and all sorts, eventually arriving at the book fair a few minutes late. We needn't have worried, we were on 'Pagan time' so the projected 11 a.m. start for the first lecture was very late.

Kim had decided to take himself off to have a look around the town and castle, as he's not Pagan and didn't fancy the lectures. We did manage to meet up with TGW, Arnametia and Sheshat (from Seshat's Voice) and we settled down to a cup of weak tea before kick-off. I was incredibly touched when Seshat produced a lovely birthday card (it's tomorrow, Sunday) with the delicate blue flowers that I just adore on the front. TGW had made the most beautiful beads for me, with a silver Goddess symbol from Ibitha (I think) and a sweet card. Honestly, I felt like I had won the lottery - to be with such lovely people and get cards and pressies was such a treat!

Anyway, time marched on and it was time to pile into the lecture hall. We looked for LavenderBlue, but yet again, she eluded us, so I'm beginning to wonder if she's deliberately avoiding me! Organisationally, Ludlow was ... interesting... and the first talk was swapped with the last as the first speaker hadn't managed to get to the gig on time. The talk was all about John Dee and by half way through I had sorted out my handbag, applied enough lip salve to be slippery and, well, I just was bored. In the end, I got up and tried to sidle out of the lecture hall as quietly and inconspicuously as possible. It was as dull as dishwater.

In the interests of fairness, the chap giving the lecture have lots of information in his head, but he clearly wasn't a public speaker and had all the charisma of a damp sponge. You will forgive my unkindness, but I never had to sit through the tedious, dry lectures of an undergraduate's life and if I'm paying to see someone, I expect to be entertained and entranced. Neither happened. Worse still, he couldn't multi-task, so had some poor woman sitting centre stage, with her back to the audience, clicking through a PowerPoint presentation that was regularly interrupted by (oh-God-I-hate-)Windows messages about a lost network overlaying pictures of his holiday in central Europe to illustrate the read-from-notes talk. They hadn't rehearsed, as the speaker was having to prompt the laptop-poker each time he was ready to show a new slide. Eventually, the lure of weak tea and gazing out of the window with my tongue hanging out got the better of me. I left.

We didn't head back as the small group had decided to set out in search of a hearty lunch and good conversation. What lovely people we spent the day with. Arnametia is sweet and though initially cautious about my psycho rantings about getting a cross-bow and shooting the noisy buggers who wake me up, she blossomed and was delightful company. Seshat, ah, now that's a lady I like - she had depth and so much warmth - I'm only sad I didn't meet her sooner. Shimma, as social and jocular as ever, kept everyone laughing until we stumbled out of the eatery, full and content.

My dear Seshat and Shimma took a turn around the square to walk off lunch and the rest of us ambled through the market looking for treats and bargains. Meeting up again in the square, Kim and I decided it was time to head back to Somerset and our moth-eaten old cat. Satnav took us on some wild and weird route along the Wye valley, which was both twisting and pretty. By 7 p.m., we were home, with the sun beating through the car windows.

What a wonderful weekend! Good company, nice food and sunshine. I don't know if any of the other lectures were any good, but it didn't really matter - I met two more lovely people and that was certainly worth the drive!