This has, thankfully, been a quiet week.  Not much going on.  I finished and sent off the survey that had me so tied up on Sunday and then wrote the report on my trip to Liverpool and followed-up with the people I met there. 

Over last weekend, Alan and I saw 4 movies.  A new one on Friday, Nostalgia for the Light, which I wrote about last Sunday and then 3 films that were the complete works of Irish filmmaker, Pat Murphy:  Meave, Anne Devlin and Nora.  The first two were 'feminist' films and while I enjoyed Meave, about a young woman trying to escape 'the troubles' and her family in Northern Ireland in the 1970's and the second about a woman who was involved in an Irish uprising in 1798, both were over long and not well edited.  The third, Nora, was Murphy's last film and by far the best, a much more theatrical (rather than 'film student') movie about Nora Barnacle Joyce, James Joyce's wife.  It starred Susan Lynch as Nora and Ewan McGregor as James Joyce.  The last was also long but much better edited.  The filmmaker, Pat Murphy was there for the screening of all three.  I thought I would enjoy that but she seemed to feel it necessary to talk before each film about 'what it is about' and I found that distracting, I would have much preferred hearing her comments afterward.  Anyway, it was interesting to see the entire filmography (to date) of one person.  I would definitely recommend Nora if you can get hold of a print.  I do believe it's still available, the other two can only be seen through access to the IFI archives. 

Last night, Thursday, we had guests in.  I met Mary on a walk in Sandymount and we have done several things together since meeting in May but this was the first time she met Alan and I met her husband, Tom.  We have a lot in common, having married the same year, no kids and a similar experience with the loss of our mother.  I hope this friendship endures passed our time here in Ireland.

This morning I did my first volunteer activity, a meeting with The Community Foundation for Ireland as a member of a steering committee trying to develop a survey instrument and method for assessing the 'vital signs' in Ireland.  It was quite interesting and I hope it turns into a long term study that will help decision makers better understand the social and political environment in the country.  It could be a big thing.  I hope so.

Finally, we are busy preparing for a visit by friends from the states.  They will be in Ireland from August 18th to the 30th with several days in Dublin and then we will go with them to Kerry to the tourist mecca  the 'Ring of Kerry', Killarney and the Dingle Peninsula.  Then they will go off on their own for a few days and then return to Dublin before they leave.  We are excited to have our first guests!  Following that, Alan's sister and brother-in-law will come for three days on September 24, then in October we will do a walking tour in Majorca in the first half and, later in the month,  have other guests for 10 days during which we are planning to go to the Cork Jazz festival.  So, all in all, it's good to have this quiet period, which I expect to extend into next week.

I'm sooo close to getting back to a 'normal' retirement schedule.  It's been a hectic and stressful six weeks since that compensation survey I've been working on closed.  Last night -- this morning -- I was up until 4:20 fixing a major glitch in the last bit. 

Last night we saw a movie at the Irish Film Institute -- Nostalgia for the Light -- a really good but very slow movie about Chile, astronomy and the aftermath of the brutal Pinochet dictatorship there.  You wouldn't think the latter two things would go together but the film maker did a great job in equating them.  One of the really thoughtful ideas he touched was that people, in Chile in particular but elsewhere as well, have a lot of interest and empathy for the challenges astronomers face in trying to piece together the ancient past through the skies but have little patience with the women who quest to find the remains of their loved ones that 'disappeared' during Pinochet's brutal regime.  They tell them "It's the past, forget it, we're focused on the future, we're tired of hearing about it!" That really made me think.

This was the first unscheduled outing since the work started getting the survey book together.  It was premature.  When I came home to what I thought would be just putting the finishing touches on the tables, I discovered a huge formatting error that affected every page.  It would have been a nightmare if I were asleep, but I was awake, it was real, and I had to deal with it, so stayed up until 4:20 a.m. to do it.  I hope to have this thing done and sent off this weekend so they are able to prepare it for publishing next week.  I will be so glad when that's done.

Following my last post, Alan and I left for Liverpool, where I spoke at the European & International Association Congress.  The speaking went well, although I was not so happy with my duties as chair of the membership stream for the conference.  I didn't have enough advance information about what that entailed and there was a lot of winging it along the way, a condition that makes me very uncomfortable.  Anyway, my part was good so it was a learning experience.

Alan and I were in Liverpool in 1983 on our way to Dublin by ferry from London.  It was a dirty, gritty, scary place then.  What a transformation!  The head of the Liverpool Convention and Visitor's Bureau mentioned that in the last 10 or so years the city has been transformed.  Technology and the business around technology has helped it to leapfrog from England's warehouse to a high-tech powerhouse. I was very impressed.

I didn't realize it in 1983 but there is a great deal of beautiful architecture there.  They call it the city that slavery built.  I was happy to see that they do not shirk from their terrible history in that sorry trade.  Mostly, in the 16th and 17th centuries they were warehousing people on their way from Africa to the Americas.  We took a very informative open-top bus tour during a break in the proceedings of the Congress.  Alan also got to go to the Beatles Museum.  I would have liked to see the childhood homes of both John and Paul, but the only way to get in them is on a heritage tour which only operates Saturday to Wednesday and we left on Tuesday.  But, back to the architecture.  In addition to some very old public buildings there is one of the largest Anglican cathedrals in Great Britain and about the ugliest, but apparently impressive inside, Catholic cathedral I've ever seen.  They call it Paddy's Wigwam.  At first I thought it was Brits being insulting to Catholics but it seems everyone calls it that.  It's brutalist architecture stands out in the otherwise traditional built environment.  I tried for a picture but couldn't find a good one, Google "Paddy's Wigwam, Liverpool" to see it, although all the pictures I've seen are taken in the best light, the 360 view we got on the tour bus is quite different. Anyway, Liverpool was a pleasant surprise all around.

That can't be said for the Ryanair flight we booked there and back.  Ryanair is Ireland's low-cost airline.  There's a joke here that they would charge to use the toilet on the plane if they could.  My 'really cheap flight' at 120 Euros for both of us quickly escalated to 320 (about $400) when you add the 100 Euro fee for forgetting to put the L. in Alan's name in the booking (name has to be exactly as on the passport), and the 100 fee for checking bags that are carry-on size with every other air carrier. In addition, the cattle call to get on the plane and get a seat is really stressful and tiring.  Never again.  It was horrible. 

Anyway, I am hoping for a quiet week upcoming.  We have scheduled dinner with my new friend, Mary, and her husband Tom on Thursday, and my first volunteer outing to a meeting on Friday, but otherwise, I'm planning to sleep in and putz around with nothing hanging over my head like the Sword of Damocles.  We'll see, I usually manage to try to fit too much in a single day.

I missed a week!

Since my last post two weeks ago I've been busy and traveling.  Just after finishing my post June 29th, we left for a weekend trip to Donegal to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary, visit my mother's grave in Frosses there, and visit some friends and relatives.  We stayed at the beautiful Solis Lough (Lake) Eske Castle, a place that we'd visited several years ago.  It's on the grounds of a property established by the White family, sold several times over the last few centuries and was purchased by a Donegal developer from the Donegal forestry agency.  When the developer purchased it, the castle was in terrible shape, the forestry folks were interested in the land and trees and had allowed the castle to go to ruin.  After investing millions of Euro, the castle is now one of the best hotels and spas I've ever experienced.  If you are interested, here's a link http://www.solishotels.com/lougheskecastle/ . I'd recommend it to anyone visiting Ireland.

The one sour note to our visit was that I had to continue working on the compensation survey if there was any hope of finishing by today because one day after we returned from Donegal, I was headed to Provence in France for a four-day visit with a friend to "see the lavender," an adventure on my friend's bucket list.    I brought 107 tables with me to Donegal to proofread in the car on the round-trip journey.  Although it was boring work, most of the tables are exactly the same just containing different information for the various positions, it kept my mind off the road, a situation that Alan appreciated!  Except to say I met my deadline and will submit the report today, enough about this monumental task.

I left for Paris on Tuesday evening, July 3 met my friend in Paris for an overnight there and then we took the train together to Avignon.  My friend arranged everything and it all was just perfect.  We had a wonderful time.  The train ride was an express and the 2.5 hours quickly passed.  It was quite crowded because there was a theater festival about to start in Avignon that Friday.  At first we thought they'd all come for the lavender tours, ha.  The hotel my friend booked was right in the heart of Avignon's central square, just steps from the Pope's Palace.  Seven Popes between 1309 to 1376 spent their terms there when Clement V refused to move from his native France to Rome.  Some other problems ensued (which I don't know about because we were there for lavender, not the Papacy and didn't tour the palace). 

The following day we did a day-long tour touching on several really nice villages in the region and learning a lot about lavender growing and commerce.  One interesting fact is that what passes for 'lavender' in gardens outside this region is really 'lavendine' a less fine version of the original (at least this is what they preach in that part of the world).  We went to the lavender museum where they were at great pains to make this distinction.  It was all quite interesting, I had no idea that lavender was used in so many things, it's quite an economic benefit to the region. 

In addition to my friend and I, our tour included three young Japanese women and a couple from China.  The French guide conducted the tour in English, the only language we all had in common.  It seems there's a Japanese soap opera set in "Lavender, France" and the young women were quite engaged in photographing themselves sitting and otherwise posing in the bright purple blooming fields.  At one point the guide had to remind them that the fields were private property!  It was quite amusing.  We had a great, sunny day, although there was a nanosecond of rain which seemed to undo some of the shopkeepers in one of the villages we visited -- clearly they are not Irish. 

The following day we did a half-day tour of the Châteauneuf-du-Pape wine region.  We visited a winery where we learned quite a lot about how to taste and assess white and red wines.  We also visited a Roman amphitheater in Orange.  Quite a full half-day tour.

When we returned to Avignon, the theater festival was just getting started.  There was a parade and outdoor performances all over the place.  It was quite the spectacle.  It was all quite wonderful, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We returned to Paris on Saturday and stayed the night in an apartment that my friend's brother rented for a week.  He and his family arrived late that evening.  I thought my flight was scheduled for Sunday evening so we spent the late afternoon and evening walking around the 7th Arrondissement (THE tourist Mecca of Paris).   A fun conclusion to the trip.


The only unfortunate event was discovering on Sunday morning that I was supposed to have left on Saturday evening, so I had to purchase a one-way ticket back to Dublin at a whopping 438 Euro! So all my efforts finding that 100 Euro round-trip to Paris were ultimately thwarted.  It dimmed an otherwise wonderful time.  


In the coming week, Alan and I are headed to Liverpool where I will be doing a presentation at the European & International Association Congress.  We return on Tuesday, when I'm looking forward to a few days of doing not much.  Till next week...