Overdrive
This week has been a bit nuts. I attribute it to summertime – there's a lot on and I can't resist the buffet of options. Work has been busy so having something after work every day has left me a bit tapped out.
Monday was book club – Tiger Moon about a WWII romance and These Days about the Belfast Blitz. Tuesday was golf (handicap cut to 25.9 – I was at 34.4 a year ago). Then into town (still in golf clothes) to meet a former Vanguard colleague and her family.
Wednesday evening was a wine and cheese tasting at Banana Block, a linen mill converted into a market/event space. Amy, our Australian sommelier, introduced us to six California wines that are "natural, low intervention" wines. Made more sustainably and with fewer chemicals. And Davide is a Sardinian cheesemaker who introduced us to six very tasty cheeses.
Thursday was Lizzo in concert in Ormeau Park. I can't say I enjoyed it because it was advertised as starting at 6 p.m. I worked late and rushed there, arriving at 6:30 after faffing about with Ticketmaster's online ticket system. The first act didn't start until 7:30, played for 40 minutes. Lizzo didn't start until 9:30 and played for 50 minutes. I just have other things I could be doing besides waiting for 3 hours to see Lizzo while surrounded by drunk teenagers.
She has a great voice and I like her music but, with both the first act and Lizzo's act, I find I am very quickly tired of twerking and very sexual dancing. The average age of the girls in the audience was maybe late teens? Just not sure what they are to make of the very sexual content. I guess I am officially an old fuddy duddy.
I left before the concert was over. It got quite cold and I left home in a rush without a jacket. I cycled there so I was dreading the cycle home. In reality the cycle home was fine. I think I was just elated to get out of the crowd.
Friday afternoon I met with a contractor, whose estimate for the conservatory was depressingly close to what I expected. But plus 20% VAT. Ugh. I later played seven holes with two friends then went into town for the first of three documentaries I signed up for as part of the Docs Ireland festival (more than 80 films on offer). The documentary was about an Irish couple who live and work in London, but who feel drawn back to Ireland in the wake of Brexit. It explored the contrasts between the two countries and the husband's mother's journey to England and back again in earlier decades. Their daughter is a Londoner and has an English accent, unlike them, so they are torn between where she feels at home and where they increasingly feel they belong. There was also a tangential story about a film they are working on about an aristocratic English woman who joined the IRA and was involved in an art heist. What was her relationship with England, Ireland?
Saturday I tried to sit and read as much as I could because I've just been in motion for too long. In the evening was documentary #2, the world premier of I Dream in Photos, about the only Irish photojournalist to ever win a Pulitzer. He's called Cathal McNaughton and he's from the north Antrim coast. It's about the intensity of being a news photographer – the adrenaline rush of being in conflict zones – and the toll being a witness to so much misery takes. He extensively documented the forced migration – bordering on genocide – of the Rohingya people. Also the running battles in Iraq and Kashmir, which he likened to his time photographing the Troubles in Belfast. I recognised many of his photos. He took three years off to spend more time with his ageing parents and his son and try to process what he'd seen and done. He is still trying to find the balance between employing the skills he innately has and being there for his family. Hard to do both in his field.
Sunday's first highlight was a nice visit with Patricia after taking Paddy around Redburn Forest. In the afternoon a visit to the Banana Block, a former linen mill that hosts an excellent food market. I played a few holes before getting rained off. In the evening my third and final documentary event. Frampton vs. Kielty was a mixture of conversation between boxer Carl Frampton and comic Patrick Kielty and clips from the documentaries both of them have made. It was an interesting evening. Kielty's father was murdered during the Troubles, so his work looks at where NI is now vs. then. Frampton, a world champion at two different weights, focuses on men's mental health and the high rate of suicide among young men. A working class Protestant (before becoming a millionaire), he married a Catholic and is very invested in a brighter future here for his children.
Now watching TV: Elton John, 76, performing his last concert at Glastonbury. He's amazing.
19-25 June