Days 83 & 84: The end of the beginning

Friday night’s celebrations had a suitably festive theme. A reasonably civilised dinner laid on by the teachers gradually descended into a riotous piss up and by midnight people were quite literally being scraped off the floor.

I’ve said it before but I have spent the past three months in the company of sixty really quite remarkable people. I can honestly say there are none of them that I do not like. All of us were drawn here by one thing or another. We arrived with different hopes, fears and expectations. We were wrung together through the same giant mangle and now, at the end, we scatter. We head our separate ways - some will never cook again, others will excel at it.

Saturday was a strange day of goodbyes. The early morning hugging session was tempered by the fact that most people were either still pissed or chronically hungover. But it was sad to say goodbye to so many good people. It would be nice to think that our paths will cross at different times as we embark upon similar pursuits. People always say that but it seldom happens.

Around the school and cottages cars were being loaded up and tearful farewells were being said. I waved off my closest friend for the last few months with more than a twinge of sadness and a vow to make it to Texas by the summer. Later on we drove another to the airport, and in the evening the few of us that remained dined at Ballymaloe and resolved to meet up again soon, in Sicily or Milan this time.

I woke this morning feeling rather strange. I have of late, though wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth. This place just feels empty. I feel empty - my friends are gone, flown from me, and the great thing that has occupied me so intently for the last twelve weeks has passed into history. I booked my ferry this afternoon and now I too shall follow them off. Just one last roll of the dice in the Blackbird tonight to look forward to.

So I guess this is it. I set out to write down everything that happened from day to day. It was hard to keep it up at times amidst the intensity and demands of everything else. Many an evening I trudged across the courtyard, laptop under my arm, dying to just go to bed. Twelve weeks, eighty-four days, seventy-two posts, sixty-five thousand words. Was it worth it? Probably not - just a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. But a true one nonetheless; a round unvarnished tale, delivered.

What happens now? I can’t be sure. But I know one thing, and not for the first time, I will borrow the words of greater men to explain it: This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Once I’ve worked out what comes next, I’ll tell you all about it.