Dublin, London, Belfast

I took mom to Dublin Airport Oct. 25. The following week I was in London. PRI's back to office policy has different teams in the office on different days. Communications is Wednesdays. So I was in the office Tuesday afternoon and all of Wedsnesday, but flew home Thursday.

I can bore you with the many problems I had with the AirBnB (including no heat) or with paying for mushroom tacos (I can't get QRs to scan on my phone, so they made me order my dinner on their website on my phone!! The waiter had to help me navigate. You would think a waiter could take my order? It had something to do with their card payment reader not working). The joys of travel + technology does my head in.

The thing to note is not a single photo from my beloved Brick Lane or even London. I had drinks after work with my team, breakfast before work with my team, drinks after work again with my team then an early Thursday flight. So no time to wander around snapping photos. The good news is I really like my team--Jasmin, who lives in London, and Rachael, who hails from Edinburgh. Two very smart and very kind women. I'm really lucky to be on such a great team, as I do need to lean on them for techie things (like Webvision). I've also twice gotten papers that were in such a state I didn't know where to begin. Jasmin helped me with one and Mark Cobley, an experienced financial journalist, helped me with another. I completely rewrote one (cutting it from 33 to 19 pages) and sent the other one back and told them to try again. I was so suprised that the PRI analysts' work needed so much editing that I need confirmation from peers before proceeding.

On Saturday I started the day as usual at Stormont with my neighbours and their dogs. We came upon a guy whose dog had lost a ball in a pile of leaves. We 'helped.'

Then I went into the city for a climate march. There were 12 speakers. !! The only one who really caught my attention was a Green Party rep called Mal O'Hara. He really knows how to deliver a speech.

And this guy also caught my eye.

I walked about 35 minutes into town, then went to St. George's market and bought some very heavy vegetables, which made the walk back seem like forever. I got home and put my feet up.

Sunday--long walk in the morning with Paddy then 12 holes of golf with Marian. Another day when I got home and had to put my feet up. Sunday night I was at Ann and Shaun's for a lovely tapas dinner with three of their friends. A very full weekend!

Nov. 2-7