Heat wave It has been in the 70s for days, which qualifies as a heat wave here. I am so acclimated to the Irish climate now that I’m struggling with the “high” temperatures. Not sure how I withstood temperatures in the 90s in the states. I actually find myself not wanting
Rejection I got two today. One kind and one perfunctory. The kind one is from an NGO working on climate change transparency, the perfunctory one was from a firm that uses freelancers to meet quarter-end writing needs of financial companies. Here’s the kind one (written by someone I met at
Rowallane Gardens Our National Trust membership expires tomorrow so today, which is a bank holiday, we visited one more property on the list. I’ve been to many gardens in my day but Rowallane stands out for having plants I’ve never seen before. One was a climbing vine whose leaves were
Maritime Festival Today’s excursion was by bike down to Queen’s Quay, where the Maritime Festival was on. I didn’t take my camera again so I’m including a link to BBC coverage [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-36408977], which has a video. There were quite a few tall
Running as metaphor I did the weekly Parkrun today and I think I had my best time so far. I’ve written before of the stress of running a 5K--the fear during the last third that I’m not going to make it to the finish line. The final stretch to the finish
Florence part 4 Last night David and I went to see A Perforated Ulster, a taping of a BBC radio show. Imagine six comedians doing a series of sketches in a wide variety of accents. It was highly entertaining. Prince Charles and Camilla have just visited Ulster, so that was a source for
Florence part 3 Florence Court from another angle. The walk through the woods on the property was gorgeous. I was in such a good mood after my time with Jane and Assunta that I fairly floated along the path, humming as if I hadn’t a care in the world. I haven’t
Florence part 2 The next three days I spent on my job search and running errands. So I’m going to stretch my Florence photos over three days. One last shot from the drive to Enniskillen. Here’s Florence Court. I arrived just in time to tour the house, which is lovely inside.
Florence Like I say, I left my buddies off near Sligo, specifically in a graveyard. This particular graveyard holds the remains of W.B. Yeats. His gravestone is engraved with an excerpt from his poem: Under Ben Bulben. So here is his grave and a second shot with Ben Bulben in
Plan B Jane and Assunta were going to take the bus back to Dublin then rent a car and drive up the west coast. The lack of automatic transmissions in rental cars scotched that plan. So I hatched another plan, which we executed today. I drove them to Derry, where we took
Bloody Bridge As I mentioned yesterday, today’s trip was the Mourne Scenic loop. We started with a drive-by of Killyleagh Castle then Dundrum Castle. Next we drove through lovely Newcastle, then did a short walk at Bloody Bridge. During one of Ireland’s many revolts, a group of rebels was dispatched
BFFs There is nothing quite like quality time with old friends. Jane, Assunta, and I covered a lot of ground verbally and vehicularly. Not sure that that’s a word, but you get the idea. It really was fun to talk about everything from church politics to nutrition to relationships to
Pubbing Like I say, Jane & Assunta arrived today. It was rainy and cold, so we repaired to a pub, as you do. We had a drink at the Harp Bar, then checked out the Dark Horse, then the Duke of York. Then I drove them across town to the Crown
Dunluce Tomorrow, my friends Jane and Assunta arrive from the U.S. I’ve spent the last two weeks getting the house in order--mainly reorganising the storage space. I have tons of photos to elevate from their visit. I’m going to begin elevating them today, which I’m pretending is
Socialising I should mention that my blogsite has had technical difficulties, so I’ve been unable to write anything for a few weeks and am backdating now. To maintain my sanity during the lonely days of job searching, I get out to socialise occasionally. Monday I went to the city airport
Jobbing So my job search is going nowhere. Here’s the kind of “essential criteria” that I lack: "Record of programmatic leadership and strategy development with relevant experience in an equivalent senior role in ESG/risk analysis within the financial sector or a related business.” ESG is environment/social/governance.
Oh THAT’S how it works In my Balmoral madness, I forgot my weekend highlight. I spent Saturday morning at the driving range being tutored by one of Northern Ireland’s best female golfers, who happens to be in my choir. She’s a retired teacher so she’s not only an excellent golfer but also
The Play’s the Thing Yesterday I was supposed to go to a Eurovision party, where people dress up like the countries competing in the song contest. I’m a weird introvert who loves the idea of a party but gets a bit panicky when party time nears and I try to visualise myself having
Horses! I grew up riding, so of course I spent time yesterday watching the horses. Ireland loves its horses, so there were two horse rings. First, the traps, harkening back to the pre-tractor days of the draught horse (who is making a return in an era of fossil free farming). Note
That’s some crazy chick Today I did succeed in getting out of the house. I went to the Balmoral Show, which is NI’s big agricultural show/fair/breed competition rolled into one. On the continuing theme of irony, I was starved when I got there and immediately visited the food tent to get
You have to laugh Yesterday was gorgeous but I spent it copy editing. Today was gorgeous too, but I had to send more information to Copylab and I had a 2 pm meeting with a woman from Business in the Community, which works with local companies on a range of issues, including improving their
Copylab One of the jobs I applied for recently was with Copylab, which has both in-house writers and freelancers. It’s a similar (but larger) set-up to my friend Kyle’s system: provide an outsourcing outlet for financial companies, particularly during quarter end. I spent all day today, and I mean
Walkathon I went for my second walk with Ann O’Dwyer, daughter of my mom’s close friend Peggy O’Dwyer. Ann likes to walk. Fast. We power walked for 2.5 hours around the Lagan Meadows and Belvoir Forest, after which I collapsed onto her kitchen chair and she fed
Spring cleaning I really must put up a photo of my new study, which is at least a month old. Finishing that room unleashed a lot of unpacking and rearranging of books and files. In turn that unleashed a reorganising of what was left in the attic spaces. Today was a dusty,
HMD Happy Mother’s Day to mothers of all stripes, including the non-reproducing variety. This photo was taken in 2008 of (back row) my godmother, Aunt Rosemary; my namesake, Aunt Kathleen; my mom and (front row) Aunt Eleanor and Aunt Joanne. Aunt Eleanor and Aunt Rosemary have since died, sadly. I