Christmas lights

Oh dear! For the second week running I've let an unseemly gap develop in my blip postings. There's no excuse for the neglect, really, though the arrival of my new MacBook on Monday meant that I spent more time than I should have playing with it and figuring out just what it's going to be used for.

Mid-week also brought on a bit of a sniffly, sneezy while, which left me feeling pretty miserable. Things had picked up sufficiently by Friday for me to brace myself for yet another socially hectic weekend. It's now Sunday afternoon as I post this, I've caught up in terms of sorting through a rather meagre selection of Blip material and selecting blips to back-post, and actual back-posting will follow soon.

EDIT:
I've now done the back-blipping. Check these out if you're interested -- Gathering, Now showing, New toys, Ha'penny Bridge at night, Ramp, Georgian wall, Pink & Blue.

I was out this morning with the camera for a very bracing walk around Howth, and tonight I go to a performance of Madame Butterfly. I'll wait until the day is over in case some later blippage will be more suitable to post for Sunday than anything that's already in the can.

Saturday began with the usual preparations for the weekly Music Group session. I'd arranged to meet our two most recent recruits to take them to today's host's place since it was first time for both of them to be there, and I'd also promised another of the regular members a lift. That all proved a little bit hectic, but it was all well worth while when the music session turned out to be one of the best in a very long time. As if musical satisfaction weren't enough, the after-session session in the local pub was also one of the best in a very long time. I was due to meet a mate of mine in town at 9.00 pm for a long-overdue get-together, but the 'craic' in the pub was so good that I ended up rushing madly to get back home and then getting in to town (I had to resort to a taxi rather than catch a bus, and got to our meeting place bang on time, but it was all a bit of a rush).

The reason for the panicky fluster was an amazing encounter in the pub. Our group gradually petered down to just three of us from the original eight. Conversation was flying in great style, and I'd already spotted that our neighbour at the next table was fascinated by our goings-on. As I passed her on the way to the toilet she surprisingly burst into German, then added smatterings of Italian and Spanish and Portuguese. This was all the more surprising because she turned out to be an American. At one point during our group conversation we'd complicated our recent Italian (Sardinian, actually) recruit on his excellent English and bemoaned the fact that we tended to be lazy when it came to learning foreign languages due to the fact that we speak English and don't feel a need for anything else. The American lady had obviously overheard our remarks, and was making a point about not every English speaker being language-lazy.

I continued to chat with her when I got back from the toilet, found her fascinating, helped her get directions to her B&B, and soon got to the stage of inviting her to join our company. As it happened, we joined her, since she'd ordered food and it was easier that way. We spent a wonderfully enjoyable time with her, and it was the pleasantness of it all which was largely responsible for my having to phone my friend to warn him that I might be later getting in to town. When I finally dragged myself away, our American friend asked me to come with her to her hire-car to give her directions from the car park to her B&B. She asked me to flip the lever for the boot (or 'trunk' as she called it), reached inside and presented me with a travelling bag and a selection of samples of men's cosmetics (sample for Calvin Klein after-shaves and so on). It was never actually said, but I surmised from the mess of stuff in her car that she's actually a sales rep for Calvin Klein and was on a whistle-stop promotional stop-over in Ireland. As I say, it was all great fun, and a terrific experience. We'll never meet Bunny again, but we'll never forget her.

Finally, since I'd got a taxi in to town and was actually well on time, I rather extraordinarily told the taxi driver about Blipfoto and asked him to take me along O'Connell Street so I could see and photograph the Christmas 'tree' which was recently switched on. It's all a bit controversial, having been acquired by Dublin City Council from France at a not insignificant cost of 300,000 euro (or so I've heard).