Jenny & Arabella

The reason the Portrush trip was so exhausting for me was that I’m much better one-on-one than in a group. Today I went for a walk with my Green Party secretary friend Jenny, who was also a lecturer at Queen’s before retiring. We walked and talked for two hours and probably could have talked for two more. I told her about my application to Ulster University, where she did a graduate degree in urban planning. She talked about the politics of academia, which I’m familiar with from other academic friends. I told her about the 50th anniversary event in Derry. She told me about her odd relatives in Toronto, whom she just visited. And then we strategised for a panel I’ll be speaking on next week that she’s organising.
I spent the afternoon doing nothing as another cold has descended--I just had one two weeks ago.
I rallied this evening to go to The Lyric to see a play by Marie Jones called Dear Arabella. Jones is one of the pantheon of Northern Ireland playwrights. Here’s a review:
"There’s something touching and intimate, simple and profound in Jones’ compassionate dissection of lives thrown glancingly but fatefully together that suggests a new maturity for the Olivier-winning writer of Stones in His Pockets.”
The only thing I’ll add is the actresses had accents so thick you could cut them with a knife. I love a good Belfast accent so, once I got the hang of the dialect, I really enjoyed it. Not just the accent but the idiom, which is so rich in Ireland, north and south.
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