Out and About

Last weekend I agreed to play a tennis match at 9 on Sunday morning. I definitely regretted it at 8 but at 11 I felt amazing, delighted with myself.

When we had some people around for dinner a couple of weeks ago, one of them brought us a miniature jigsaw in a tube which is something Spanish people do after dinner. Because they are psychotic.

I spent ages doing it doubtless ruining my eyesight and this was the unsatisfactory result.

But then while I was out at tennis, Daniel texted me this.

And what a treat.

Mr. Waffle and I went out to Howth taking our bikes on the DART (suburban train). We had a lovely lunch and we went for a walk. I was living my best life, I can tell you.

And this is where hubris caught up with me. I suggested that we cycle home which is somewhere between 15 and 20kms. God, I nearly died. We cycled around by the bay and the wind was vigorously against us the whole way. We had to stop half way for me to have a restorative cup of tea and when I got home all I could do was sit on the sofa for the evening whining about exhaustion.

I had another tennis match at 9 this morning (again the regret/satisfaction cycle) but all I had planned for the rest of the day was my Sunday afternoon bookclub which was altogether less physically demanding than last weekend’s adventure.

In cultural news

, yes, of course that’s why you’re here, I saw “Zone of Interest” with a friend during the week (Mr. Waffle having refused to come). I thought it was really excellent. It’s a new angle on the holocaust which I would have thought impossible. It is truly chilling while showing no violence at all but set to a horrifying soundscape that I will remember for a long time.

I also took myself to the new exhibition in the Gallery which is lots of Dutch head studies – lots of Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck etc. I found it reasonably enjoyable but the stand-out find for me was an artist called Michael Sweerts who was born in Brussels in 1618. Here are a couple of his head studies which I found startlingly modern.

And how was your own weekend? Not too exhausting, I trust.