Upset

I made a special point of leaving the house early for today's music session so I could play with the new camera beforehand. Fine in theory, and I did manage to fit in a few shots in Malahide.

Why Malahide again, after being there yesterday for the first shoot with the new camera? Because, as I reached into my pocket to take out the car key I realised that my wallet wasn't there, so went back in and up to my bedroom to get it, assuming that I'd left it in its usual place beside the bed. It wasn't there, and there was no sign of it elsewhere in the house either. Thinking it might have fallen out of my pocket in the car yesterday, I thoroughly searched there too, but still there was no sign of it. That's when I decided to go out to Malahide, on the off chance that I'd left it in a café I'd gone to when the camera battery ran out and brought yesterday's photo session to an end. They remember me from yesterday, but unfortunately hadn't found my wallet.

So there was nothing for it at that stage but to phone and cancel my bank cards, and now somehow I have to survive for the "three to five working days" before replacement cards arrive. Understandably, I wasn't in the best mood when I got to the music session, but I put a brave face on and got through that okay. Over one drink in the pub afterwards (we were in Swords, so being in Malahide beforehand actually made sense), we held a preliminary chat about next year's musical trip. The intention is to base ourselves in Freiburg, Germany, and fit in operas and concerts there and in Baden-Baden, Strasbourg and Basel. It's looking as if the timing of the trip will be at the end of May.

After our chat I went over to Carl's place, using the Port Tunnel on one of the rare occasions it makes sense to do so. We'd been invited to dinner with a neighbour of Carl's, but it became clear when we spoke to him that he'd forgotten having invited us. We met up with him instead in the wonderful Fitzgerald's pub in Sandycove and had a grand old natter, during which he seemed to remember the invite but very cleverly gave the impression that he'd intended it to be for tomorrow.

The blip began as an accident while showing off the new camera to Carl. It isn't easy to tell, but it's an unintentional shot of a nest of tables in his place. Its general vagueness suits the wallet upset rather well.