Duke Special

Today was errands, Christmas shopping, trip to post office to mail packages to the US--a 46-minute wait in line. The irony here is part of my TenX9 talk was about how people don’t worship efficiency here like they do in the US--and that’s a good thing. They have time to talk to each other. Waiting in that line was proof positive. There was only one teller (at lunch time! at Christmas! on a Saturday!). The part of me that loves efficiency was not happy with this. However I had a proper chat with the two women behind me. One of who told us of how a doctor fatally misdiagnosed her infant sister as having “growing pains” when she had rheumatoid fever that turned into pneumonia. She said her mother forgave the doctor and that the daughter appeared in the mother’s dreams and gave her flowers. And she told us what was on sale at Marks and Spencer’s (make-up half price!). I got the impression the woman lived alone and was glad of company. The 46 minutes went by quickly.

Home, nap, then into the city for a concert by Duke Special, a wonderful songwriter from Belfast. I find his songs very sensitive, introspective, gentle, honest, a bit whimsical. I think he said he’s been performing for 17 years so he’s no spring chicken.

The song that stood out for me was called the hand of man, lyrics here. After I left the concert, I called in at the monthly swing dance social for a few dances. It was a long day and I was happy to crawl into bed at the end of it.
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