Three weeks, one post

Like I say, I had less than 3 weeks between Paris and a flight to Dulles on Friday Oct. 4. The highlights of those 3 weeks.

I played golf three times. Which was stupid because I hurt my shoulder while doing side plank in my hotel room in Paris to counteract all the heavy meals and drinking. Apparently side plank is one of those things you can't up and do at my age after not having done it for a long time. But I played two social rounds to prepare for the last round with the Ballyhackamore Golf Society at Rockmount Golf Club--a new course for me. I would have won longest drive but my ball was literally two inches off the fairway in the rough. TBF, the hole selected for the longest drive prize gave the women an advantage b/c the women's tee was well ahead of the men's, unlike on the other holes. The woman who won didn't drive anywhere near as far as me. "It's a cruel game," she said. Still, the day was good craic and we had a big feed afterward. But my shoulder was still hurting a month later.

I went to see the play Shirley Valentine starring the woman who plays the mother in Derry Girls. She's a very talented actress and a very funny comedienne. But I found it hard to stay with the play as it was a one-woman show. I think I need dialogue to stay engaged in a drama.

My book club met to discuss Winter in Madrid, a very sad tale of people caught up in the Spanish Civil War. I didn't know a lot about this chapter in history so I found the book very interesting. I subsequently learned that George Orwell, veteran of the International Brigades that fought in Spain, created the rat-cage-torture scene in 1984 based on his experiences in Spain. I also read a book called Stay With Me, about a woman in Nigeria who loses two children to sickle cell anemia and abandons her third child, unable to face the same fate.

Last but not least. On the Saturday before I left Belfast, I took a four-hour safe driving class. I was dreading this, as I'd been told it was one hour of material spread over four hours. And I'd be hectored for my misdeed (driving 49 mph in a 40 zone). By contrast, I found it very interesting and even heart warming. As in the teachers are very committed to making the roads safer by helping their students be more cautious drivers. It was interactive, there were short videos, the teachers were funny. I learned a lot and really appreciated the effort that went into the class. The best part was all about emotional intelligence. They asked us what makes us stressed when we are driving. Kids in the car, late for work, being tailgated, traffic... Then they asked what can we do to reduce that stress? By taking the class, I avoided points on my license. AND I learned a lot about the different kinds of roads (rural, single carriageway, dual carriageway, motorway) and the speed limits that apply on those roads (often unmarked). If you know which kind of road you are on, you will know the speed limit. I studied this to get my driving test but you don't get to ask questions when you read a manual and you do when there's a human in front of you.

After the class I went into Belfast and bought five items of clothing in three shops in one hour. The power shop was to find an outfit to wear under a gorgeous Japanese dressing gown I bought at a vintage shop in London. I tried them all on with the gown and wasn't sold on any of them. David convinced me to pivot from the winter white items I bought to basic black--trousers and a camisole I already had.

Oct. 3