music, travel

she was electric blue, catching the last of the light.

…and then we went to Festival No.6 in Portmeirion. It’s been years since I’ve been to what I’ll hesitantly refer too as a ‘smaller’ festival, and I had the loveliest time getting reacquainted with it. We made friends for life and discovered some sublime new music – both of which tend to evade me when I surrender myself to those hectic few days a year on Worthy Farm (not that I’d change that for the world) – and on top of those accidental perks, we saw Badly Drawn Boy in the woods (who closed with the Stone Roses’ I Wanna Be Adored), made it into two 100-capacity Town Hall sets with the No.6 Ensemble (Gaz Coombes and James, no less), caught Steve Coogan and Chris Gifford in the Central Piazza, watched our beloveds – Belle & Sebastian and King Creosote – headline, and fell in love with the Brythoniaid Choir daily. All that’s left to say is: be seeing you.

travel

if I could have a second skin, I’d probably dress up in you

So we made it up to Edinburgh for the last week of the Fringe Festival in August and the conclusion was: I continue to bloody love that place and I continue to be in awe of Daniel Kitson. Besides Kitson’s Polyphony, which won the week for me, we also caught James Acaster, Stewart Lee, Lolly Adefope and Tom Basden’s Party – and lots more. Naturally we booked dinner at the Scran & Scallie (it never fails), but were also recommended the brilliant Ting Thai Caravan, from which, it turned out, we couldn’t stay away. Throw in long afternoons of folk at Sandy Bell’s, all-the-beers at Brauhaus, coffee and truck toasties at Cairngorm Coffee Co. and all-too-frequent night-caps in the Thistle Street Bar – and you have yourself one very sad-it-was-over logsy. Just don’t talk to me about the wind on Arthur’s Seat.