Winning at life

Two amazing Saturdays in a row. Today was a bit more frenetic than I would prefer, but what a day. It began by taking a long walk along Lough Foyle with Julie and her two lovely dogs, Chip and Beau. Chip is a field springer spaniel and Beau is Chippie's son, although he looks more like a lab. Then Julie’s son Ronnie introduced me to virtual reality video games. Mind blown. I used lasers to slice fruit that was being lobbed at me in a Japanese courtyard, a bow and arrows to slay little men attacking my castle, I threw sticks for a robot dog on Norwegian highlands, and I admired the mountains of Washington state--actual 3D photos of actual mountains. I’m not sure if the eagles flying below me were from videos or some kind of simulation. Anyway, it was like jumping forward a century for someone like me, who can barely use my phone.

Then I had lovely visits with Mr. Bigger and Mrs. Walker. Drumahoe and Eglinton had recently been flooded and I wanted to see how they made out. Mr. Brigger was fine but Mrs. Walker was in the soup. Luckily her son had been visiting from England with his family and they sorted her out as best they could.

Then to a reading at the Guildhall of Making History, a play by local playwright Brian Friel (who died in 2015). It was a powerful reimagining of the conversations that took place at the time of the Flight of the Earls from Ireland after a drubbing by the English army in 1607. FrielFest also included the following: "Acclaimed Irish actor/director Adrian Dunbar will direct a special site-specific adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, presented episodically with food and music on five of the most beautiful beaches in Donegal."

As for the above:
"In Derry’s Guildhall Square will stand Odysseus’s cunning idea of The Trojan Horse under the Walls of Derry evoking both the Troy and Derry sieges.”
To complete my most unusual day, I went to a pub on Waterloo Street and watched the second half of the women’s rugby final. England was up 5 points when I got there but New Zealand wore them down and ended up winning 41-32.

This day had so many different things going on that my brain is going to be playing catch up for a while.
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