My reward

Today was the perfect antidote to travel stress. Tea with Jenny in Ballyhackamore for a start. She’s a retired Queen’s professor (housing policy and urban regeneration) whom I met at a Green Party event. She’s like Carolyn, a music nerd. I find it so entertaining talking to people who inhabit a cultural niche that is foreign to me. She said she was concerned about seeing Cosi Fan Tutte at The Grand Opera House, which she thought was better suited to "blousy 19th century productions.” She was also concerned it would be “a bit ropey” but then realised it was the musicality that mattered, not the technical aspects of the composition. Or something like that.

As it happens, I’m reading Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty about a young woman composer who has left her suffocating Northern Ireland town/family for Scotland. Again, so interesting to be taken through the thought process of someone who experiences the world through her ears and through the experience of rhythm and beats. For example, in one of her compositions she works in the sound of her feet going up the ladder of the slide. She wasn’t interested in the slide as a child, but in the clanging noise of her ascent on the metal stairs. I told Jenny I’d lend her the book.

Next stop, Belfast’s Christmas market, where I was on the hunt for potatoes bravas. I had these last year and they were a savoury marvel. Sadly, I couldn’t find them. But I bought some lovely bird seed wreaths from the Dutch nursery. Hostess gifts for my Christmas visit to Derry. In this internet photo, you can see city hall to the right of the market:

I also bought a face lotion made with honey. I have rosacea--so far unnoticeable--and I live in fear of waking up some day and having a red, irritated looking face. I have products from Clinique, Neutrogena, and two city markets (coconut based and honey based). I rotate among the choices to hedge my bets.

Then I went to Botanic Avenue, near Queen’s, where I had a to-die-for Palestinian falafel wrap. On to Stranmillis for a hair cut. All in all, a good day.

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