List of the Month - Tales of the Unexpected

I try to take a fairly free-form and improvisatory approach to travelling; I try to be a good boy scout (not that I ever was one; it's just an expression, you understand) and be prepared for anything; I try to expect the unexpected.

But still, occasionally, Life takes me by surprise, sneaks up on the blind side.....

I seem to have had an unusually large number of such odd - as the Chinese would say, unexpectable - experiences on this latest holiday of mine.

So, here they are....

12 Things I Never Expected To Be Doing On This Holiday

Seeing some Shakespeare (King Lear)

(And paying about twice as much as I ever have in my life before for a theatre ticket!)

Making my first ever total clearance in a game of pool

(At least, as far as I can remember. It must certainly be the first one in a very, very long time. It was only on a half-size kiddies' table at a friend's house, but still..... a very pleasing achievement.)

Listening to Belly's 'King' album again for the first time in ages

(It was a great favourite of mine when it first came out in the mid-90s, but it might be 10 or 12 years since I'd last heard it.)

Catering a dinner party, at very little notice, from a woefully unstocked kitchen

(Thank heavens for Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food!)

Having my first serious asthma attack in about 30 years

(Sadly, this forced me to cut short my weekend in Bath, where I encountered the severe allergy problem.)

Going to see Brüno

(I was dragged along to it, despite my vigorous opposition.)

Drinking in a Swiss (?!) pub

(in a quiet suburb of Oxford... )

Being serenaded by the septuagenarian mother of one of my hosts

(with a delightful impromptu rendition of the traditional Tyneside schoolchildren's song Geordie's Lost His Penker)

Being publicly fondled by a sexy singing star

(All just part of the show, alas.)

Getting stung by a bloody wasp

(Also for the first time in about 30 years; hence my exaggerated anxiety that I might have developed a fatal allergy to the little bastards in the interim!)

Taking part in a pub quiz

(And oh, so nearly winning! Although I am somewhat ashamed that I knew Paris Hilton's middle name... )

Walking 'home' past Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, after midnight, in the pouring rain

(Oh, who am I kidding? That happens every time I go there!)