Dereliction

Not much to choose from today, so you're just getting this quick shot of a vacant lot I passed by this morning after parking the car on the way to meet one of the guys from the music group for a bit of a coffee break.

The Food Room is conveniently situated for both of us, more or less halfway between Bernard's place in Clontarf and mine in Beaumont. It's a deservedly popular refreshment spot, nicely decorated and laid out, but most importantly a place that serves good food and does it pleasantly.

We discussed this and that, including giving the group a bit of a nudge towards final decision-making for our annual trip abroad (musical pilgrimage, as I prefer to call it). The plan this year is to make it a multi-centre excursion, basing ourselves primarily in Freiburg but also including Basle, Strasbourg and Baden-Baden as additional musical destinations. All that's decided so far is the timing (end of May), and only one of the gang has actually booked any performance tickets. So we need to do some whip-cracking.

The rest of the day was spent irresponsibly unproductively, despite best intentions to get some preliminary work done for a dinner party I'm hosting on Saturday evening. After this it really is time for some serious cleaning and tidying, followed by preparation of a detailed shopping list. A couple of the planned courses need to be attended to tomorrow night, so I really need to get the lead out -- still, I always tell people I work best under pressure.