Choices

David and I were both in town this weekend, which means a deadly level of productivity. I could zoom in on any of a number of things or just keep a broad focus. I’m going with the latter.

We spent the first few hours moving furniture, books, and artwork into David’s new study, which he just finished painting. Then we unloaded the desk I bought at auction for my office--I’d been using David’s desk. When we got it out of the car, we discovered that it has an active woodworm population. So, red leather top or no red leather top, we hauled it to the recycling centre and put it in a giant skip. Sadness.

After some additional cleaning and reorganising, we went to a garden centre and bought plants, dropped them by the house, then went for a long walk through Belvoir Forest Park, across the Lagan River, over Shaw’s Bridge, and south to Minnowburn Park. At Minnowburn, we climbed a hill to get this view of the Lagan Valley and of Malone House in the background.

We are in the terraced gardens of the home built by the Robinson half of the Robinson Cleaver department store. The house is still private but the gardens and paths leading down to the Lagan Towpath are open to the public.

We were exhausted by the time we got back to the car. We called in at Marks & Spencer for victuals, had an M&S feed and then parked in front of the TV. We watched Pink Floyd--The Wall because I learned recently that Bob Geldof has the lead role. I was never a big Pink Floyd fan. The film reminded me of a Who concert we attended that had a backdrop of images, some of them related to WWII. Both bands were influenced by the aftermath of the war. The Wall opens with dramatised scenes of Roger Waters' father dying in the trenches. It’s an upsetting film but, of course, Sir Bob was brilliant. Then we watched the second part of a wonderful travelogue set on the west coast of Ireland and then, finally, sleep.
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