avevale_intelligencer

I made several mistakes this last weekend.

The first was deciding to take the entire musical kit, rather than the cheap'n'cheerful Yamaha keyboard from Lidl. The EMK does not include its own speakers, so the only way it would have worked was being plugged into the con PA, and since I wasn't an actual performer this year, there was no justification for doing that. So I lugged it there, and many helpful people helped me unload it, and it sat in the room doing nothing till I had to load it back in for the homeward trip. Silly Zander.

The next was turning right at Cirencester. Multimap gave me this route, straight up via Warwick and Coventry and the M1, and assured me with its virtual hand on its cybernetic heart that it should only take three and three-quarter hours, so when we didn't get to set off till gone three I wasn't too downhearted. Then Cirencester happened, and I'm wrong, because the real next mistake was leaving the map and directions I'd so carefully printed out at home. I knew I had to be on the A419 at some point before getting on the A429, and when the A419 offered and there was no sign of a sign for Warwick, I went, and ended up back at Gablecross on the outskirts of Swindon on the route we usually take for the DC, having wasted over an hour and gods know how much petrol. Gaaaaah. So, off on the DC route to Oxford and Bicester, and when we came to the M1 just outside Northampton I took it, and got back on the new route that way...but what with that and getting lost again just outside Grantham and finding myself on the A1 heading north, and having had to stop for food because I was getting even more fuzzy-brained than usual, we didn't pull into the Ramada car park till well gone nine, and by that time I'd missed Bill and Brenda, Piers and Silke, all of whom I had wanted very much to hear. Very, very silly Zander.

In mitigation, the next mistake wasn't actually mine, but more of that later...