Making connections

When you first move somewhere new everything is strange. You feel like you're walking down other people's streets, shopping in other people's shops, sending your kids to other people's schools. Then, gradually, some of the many strange things around you start to join up with each other and this somehow gives them the illusion of familiarity.

Last night we went to QE lower school (the maturing ruin up on the hill) to see the massed local primary school choirs in action. Our nine-year-old daughter was in there somewhere. Anyway, the conductor and composer of the evening's main event was Elfyn Jones. I had already met Elfyn at the Arts Centre where I have persistently gate-crashed the Measure for Measure workshops on the off chance that someone might recognise me or at least make an attempt to include me. Elfyn is the production's musical director - a gentle, talented, neatly-proportioned chap who taught us all to sing and to inject an assortment of metal items with rhythm. So Elfyn has become one of my tenuous reference points. Yesterday morning - to my great surprise - I bumped into him in a corridor at work. He looked at me blankly. "You don't remember me out of context, do you?" I suggested. When I described the relevant context he looked like he felt he ought to remember me. That's a good start, I thought. And then I saw him again that evening at QE. I begin to feel as if people who know Elfyn must know me.

Anyway, the concert. Fabulous. And witnessed by a throbbing mass of delighted parenthood. It was all cheerfully compered by a Rotarian who rejoiced in a bow-tie and shiny waist-coat. To raise some funds, raffle-tickets were sold on the door and I splashed out on 30 tickets. Can't lose, I thought smugly. The raffle draw came towards the end of the evening and there turned out to be numerous prizes: a bar of soap, an insulated flask, a plastic duck, and so on. At first I was outraged that I wasn't winning but soon I began to feel relieved. "And the last prize," the Rotarian announced, "is the best: a one-and-a-half hour full body massage. And it goes to pink ticket 206." I'd won! I proudly waved my ticket above the assembled masses and waited for the delivery of my prize. Eventually I spotted a grey-haired gent making his way towards me, wriggling through the crowds. "Oh, oh," I thought, "Here comes the masseur." I began to take off my clothes - cautiously.