TGFO

Thank God for the Olympics.

I say this because the weather so far this year has been disheartening, to put it mildly. January saw 7.7 inches of rain – the most for that month in 150 years. I wouldn't be surprised if February isn't equally ambitious.

I resist going out on a cold wet night so I'm enjoying the Olympics. Other activities include books, of which more later, and walking, washing and drying two mud-caked dogs. Twice a day.

The other day I fell backwards and slid down a hill, making my coat look a bit like my dogs. It's made of recycled polyester and looks like new after I hosed it down outside then put it through the wash.

So, books. The Four Corners festival just concluded. I saw two authors, and am reading one of their books. The first author was a woman from Jamaica who rose through the ranks to become a Church of England bishop, despite much discrimination along the way. The second was the Rev. Harold Good, who was deeply involved in bringing together Catholics and Protestants throughout the Troubles. He was so respected by both sides that he was selected, with Fr. Alec Reid, to be present at the decommissioning of the IRA's weapons in the early 2000s. The book, In Good Time, is very interesting.

I also attended the launch of a book about Shandon Park Golf Club, commissioned for its centenary. During the two-hour presentation and panel, the ladies section was not mentioned once. Not once. One third of the audience was women. I sent a message to lady captain and got a response that I found, like the weather, disheartening. Apparently the only interesting thing that has happened at Shandon in 100 years was in the 1970s and 1980s, when the senior men's team won several all-Ireland trophies. If any of the male presenters have been reading the coverage of the Epstein crimes, they might be a bit more sensitive to how men render women invisible and expendable and how women feel about that.

Otherwise, I meet with friends for coffee and worry about money. I've been trying for a few weeks to move money from my US bank to my UK bank. With no success. In multi-step processes online I often get confused about what order to do things in. This has made it very difficult to tie the two banks to Wise, a platform that provides better exchange rates than banks. The struggle is to move dollars to pounds before my UK checking account runs dry. In the absence of fresh funds, I'm not planning any holidays and generally trying to be frugal.

For exercise, I've been swimming twice a week. That hasn't prevented me from losing all the fitness I achieved for Kili. Next week I'll get back with my personal trainer after a long break. If the weather would just improve a bit, I might get out for the odd hike (and golf!). Until then I'm resigned to some extra winter weight.

Mid Jan to Mid Feb.